Hunted
by phoenixfire53
Summary: I was 11 when I first saw John Connor. I was 13 when I ran away with him from a terminator. Takes place during T2.
1. To the Galleria!

**Author's Note:**Okay, I was really jonesing to do this, so here ya go. My first Terminator fanfic. By the way, it's a fanfic for T2: Judgment Day. Just a heads-up. :)

**Title:**Hunted

**Summary:**I was 11 when I first saw John Connor. I was 13 when I ran away with him from a terminator. Takes place during T2.

**Pairing:**John/OC. I always wondered what would happen in Judgment Day if I were to toss a chick into the story... well, one that was John's age, anyway. I'm assuming that a frak-ton of madness ensues, but I like madness. Hence, Nik Paulsen is created.  
_**NOTE - **_**KATE HASN'T MET JOHN... YET. SHE WILL LATER, BUT FOR NOW, WE ARE FOCUSING ON WHAT GOES ON BETWEEN NIK AND JOHN. AND ONE MORE THING, I TWEAKED JOHN'S D.O.B. SO IT COULD BETTER SUIT MY STORY. IF ANY OF YOU FIGURE OUT THAT HIS D.O.B. IN THIS IS FEBRUARY 28, 1981, WELL, NOW YOU KNOW MY LOGIC BEHIND IT.**

**Rating:**T. I was debating rating this sucker M, but I changed my mind and changed it to a T-rating.

**Disclaimer:**I own a green hockey jersey. I AM THE GREEN MACHINE! XD On the downside, I do NOT own Judgment Day, nor do I own the characters (excluding Nik Paulsen) that are involved.

**ALL RIGHTY, GUYS! ENJOY WHAT COMES AT YA! :D**

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

The first time I saw John Connor, I was eleven years old, and quick to stereotype him as an arrogant little shit with a cool Honda dirtbike and a one-way ticket to a prison cell in the next five or so years.

I obviously didn't take my sweet time to really get to know the guy.

The second time I saw him, I was twelve years old, and actually got a glimpse of the real John - he was a foster kid, stuck living with two people who honestly couldn't give a damn about him, while his real mom was locked up in the Pescadero psych ward. That was the only reason why he was where he was. After that, I learned to sympathize.

A year later, I turned thirteen, and wound up sitting in John's garage with him and his buddy Tim Hanson a couple days after my age count went up one. For the past few hours, Tim and I had been sitting on toolboxes, blasting Guns n' Roses on a cheap-o radio, and watching John attempt to fix the carburetor for his dirtbike, bored out of our minds.

I groaned. "Dammit Connor, how long does it take to fix your carburetor?"

"Quit bugging me Nik, or I swear, I WILL use your full name," John threatened me with an annoyed growl.

"John, if you call me Nikole even once, you and I are gonna have problems." I shot an irked look over to Tim. "That goes double for you, Timmy-boy."

"You're no fun. How come you never let me push your buttons?"

I fiddled with the dogtags hanging around my neck for a moment, then smiled sweetly at Tim. "Because, you know I'd mow you over with my XR as soon as you did."

John snorted. "I'd probably help you out," he chimed in.

"Thanks a lot, Connor."

All of a sudden, a whiny voice broke through Axl Rose's wailing. With an inaudible groan, I realized it was John's foster mom, Janelle.

"Oh, wonderful. Frizzelle's here to harp," I muttered under my breath.

John glanced over his shoulder briefly, and I saw his eyes roll. Janelle (Frizzelle, I should say), was glaring at John with a you-piss-me-off glint in her dull brown eyes. Like it was every time I saw her, her black-brown hair was in a poofed-up ponytail, complete with an everlasting ring of frizzies that surrounded her head like a halo. Today, 'Frizzelle' completed the working-class look with the Saturday newspaper she was holding in one hand like a club.

"John, get in there and clean up that pigsty of yours!" she ordered him in her whiny voice.

John, in response, ignored Frizzelle and her ranting, and revved the dirtbike's engine loudly, until she gave up and stomped back inside. As soon as Frizzelle was gone, we all started laughing.

"Foster parents are kinda' dicks, huh?" Tim chuckled.

John nodded. "Oh yeah." At last, he finished with the carburetor, and placed it back in his XR; then, he grabbed his ever-present blue backpack, and sat down on the bike. "C'mon, let's ditch this joint."

I jumped on my bike, which looked exactly the same as John's, excluding the paint job (mine had deep blue accents; his had red-orange accents).

My mouth curled into a half-frown. "So, where exactly are we going?"

"Dunno. You wanna go to the arcade at the Galleria?"

I shrugged. "Sounds good to me." I kickstarted my XR, and it snarled to life. "C'mon, let's bail."

John kickstarted his bike as Tim sat down behind him, radio in hand. We started heading out, but before we could really get rolling, Frizzelle's husband, Todd, trudged out with a deep scowl on his face. As usual, Todd looked like he'd rather eat dirt than deal with a couple of punks like us.

"John!" he barked. "C'mon, get your ass inside and do what your mother tells you!"

The moment he said that, John hit the brakes on his dirtbike, and it jolted to a stop. He looked over his shoulder and at Todd, his sharp green eyes glinting with a piercing coldness. There was a deadly calmness radiating from him.

"She's not my mother, _Todd,_" John said icily. "C'mon guys, let's get outta here."

Then, without another word, he hit the gas, and took off down the street in the direction of the Galleria. I silently flipped Todd the finger, then sped away to catch up with John and Tim, snickering as he yelled obscenities at me.

_Yeah, whatever. You deserve it. Jackass._

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

Nik finally caught up with John and Tim just as they took the right to get into the canals. Her bright blue dirtbike buzzed up behind and beside his, and revved a couple times to get his attention. John's dead-serious face lit up slightly, and he shot her a cocky one-sided smirk.

"Paulsen! What the hell took you so long?" John yelled to her as their bikes gunned down the ramp and into the canals.

"Pissing Todd off!" Nik yelled back over the thrum of the bikes and the blaring Guns n' Roses music. "Prick thinks he can make us do anything!"

"He wishes!" And he was right. John knew that his foster parents couldn't convince him to do anything they asked him to. _Never have, never will,_he thought smugly.

Nik went silent for a moment as she steered her bike towards a large downwards ramp; she focused on the big stretch of concrete in front of her, her frigid blue eyes narrowed into slits to protect them from the wind colliding into her face, and hit the throttle. Immediately, the bike went airborne. As she shot through the air, the long ponytail she'd tied her hair back into flew straight out behind her, and the black-tipped sidebangs she'd left out from under her white bandanna flailed wildly beside her left temple. The wind sent large ripples across her gray t-shirt, giving it the appearance of a boat sail. John chuckled to himself; at the moment, Nik looked like a hardcore stunt biker in a wind tunnel, and damn, it was entertaining.

"Somebody's a little amused," Nik said after touching down to the ground, not once shifting her gaze. "What's going through your head, John?"

"Nothing you need to know, Nik." John's face turned a little red at almost revealing his thought process to the girl on his left.

Thankfully, Nik shrugged it off. She looked at John now, and asked, "So, you still pissed at Todd?"

John shook his head. "Sorta'. I'd rather not talk about it right now," he answered Nik flatly.

She nodded, and left the subject alone, rather than badgering him. John had his reasons for getting pissy when "mother" was mentioned; he just wasn't in the mood to discuss it at the moment.

He felt Tim tap his shoulder. "Yes Tim?" he sighed in a stressed tone.

"Hey, did you grab any cash before we left your place?"

John mentally slapped himself. "Aw, shit! No, I totally forgot to grab some." He quickly reached behind his back, and pawed at his blue pack until his fingers brushed against something boxy. He breathed in relief at having remembered to bring his little hacking computer. "Well, we're lucky I dragged Old Faithful along for the ride."

Nik smirked. "Is that what you're calling your hack toy now?"

"Hell yeah," John grinned. "C'mon, there's supposed to be a bank near here." He then throttled his dirtbike up an exit ramp, and headed for the bank diagonally across from him.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

We steered our bikes towards the dinky drive-thru bank so John could grab us some cash. I dumped my XR on the sidewalk behind John's, then jogged over to the ATM to watch him work his magic.

He pulled "Old Faithful" - his hacking tool - out of his pack, and took out a wired, blank credit card. "Please insert your stolen card now," he joked as he slipped the card into the ATM. Once the card was in the machine, John started pressing buttons on the computer's keyboard, and watched quietly as numbers scrolled up the screen, which gradually began to grow smaller.

"Will you hurry up? This is taking too long."

Out of annoyance, I five-starred Tim on the back. "Hanson? Do me a solid, and BE PATIENT. It'll be done soon enough."

"Thank you, Nik. Somebody needed to shut him up."

"Much obliged."

John mumbled a number - I think he said 9003 - and quickly punched it in on the ATM.

Tim boredly stuffed his hands in his pockets, and started pacing, his neon-orange mullet floating out behind him like a thick paper streamer. "Where did you learn all this stuff, anyway?"

"From my mom – my real mom, I mean," John replied. "Withdraw... three, zero, zero... bucks."

The machine made a loud humming noise, like it was protesting doling out the large amount of cash John had just asked it for. For a second, I thought the damn thing was gonna go ka-put and break.

"C'mon baby, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon... YES!" John cheered as he grabbed the big stack of twenty dollar bills hanging out of the ATM. He folded the bills in half, and waved them in front of Tim's face.

He grinned. "Easy money."

"Yes Connor, you're a genius."

"Don'tcha know it."

We all ran back to the bikes, high-fiving each other at John's success at ATM hacking. John stuffed Old Faithful back in his pack, as well as the money.

I suddenly noticed a small, square piece of paper flutter out of John's pack; I snatched it just as it fell to the sidewalk, and stared. It was a faded picture of a woman sitting in a jeep. She had this commando-ish look to her; her long blonde hair was tied back into a ponytail, and there was an army-green headband covering most of her forehead; the white t-shirt the woman wore was covered in little beige splotches of mud; and I could've sworn I saw a leather gunstrap resting on her right shoulder. The only thing that betrayed the chick Rambo look was the woman's facial expression. It was neutral and calm, and her green eyes (exactly like John's) were full of placidness. I had to admit, it was a pretty badass photo.

"Wow," I breathed softly.

Apparently, I'd said that loud enough for Tim to hear, and out of curiosity, he took the picture from my hands. "That her?" he asked John as he showed him the photo.

"Yes." John ripped the photo from Tim's hands, and shoved it in his pack carelessly.

"So, she's pretty cool, huh?"

"No, she's a complete psycho. That's why she's up at Pescadero - it's a mental institute, okay?" He slipped his arms through the beat-up straps of his pack. "She tried to blow up a computer factory, but she got shot and arrested."

Tim's eyes grew wide as he took in what John had just told him. "No shit?" was all he could say.

"She's a total loser," John sighed as he started his dirtbike up. "C'mon, let's go spend some money."

As soon as I was on my bike, we took off into the canals again. As I came up beside John, I saw hurt written all over his face. His eyes had glazed over, and his mouth had formed into a tight-lipped frown. He almost looked like he'd just been punched in the stomach.

John's green eyes suddenly flicked to the left, and began boring into my blue eyes. My stomach started doing nervous flip-flops when he looked directly at me.

"What?"

"Are you okay? You look..." I bit my lip hesitantly. "Well… kinda' pissed."

He shook his head. "I'm fine, Nik," he insisted. "Why wouldn't I be?"

_Oh, I dunno, it's not the greatest shitload of fun to talk about your mom?_

"I'm sure you are, John," I sighed. "I'm sure you are…"

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**WOOT! CHAPTER ONE IS DONE AND UP! ENJOY, AND R&R! :D**


	2. Targets Acquired

**Author's Note:**I am seriously determined to finish this sucker before the end of summer. Anyways, here's chapter 2 for you guys! :D One more thing, sorry if this sounds a bit awkward; I was running out of ideas, so I wrote this a filler chapter. Anywho, hope you like it!

**Disclaimer:**I own…the right to school you in an ice-skating race. I have hockey skates. What do you have? X)

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The police cruiser halted to a stop in front of the tiny gray house, only a few feet away from the cracked concrete driveway and agape garage. Inside the vehicle, an officer's stony gray eyes surveyed the Reseda neighborhood carefully, checking to make sure he was in the right place. His intuition told him he was correct. The officer mutely nodded to himself, stepped out of the cruiser, and walked up to the house's front door.

He rapped on the carved and battered white wood door curtly, and took a step back. _Commence with normal conversational dialect._

The door opened, and a woman with mousy dirt-blonde hair and icy blue eyes looked tiredly at the spitshined, thin, blond officer standing before her. She seemed surprised to see him in front of her.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"Are you the mother of Nikole Paulsen?" he asked the woman right away. He had no time to make petty conversation – time was precious, and he couldn't waste it, not right now.

The woman nodded. "Yes, I'm Christine Paulsen," she said. "What's going on?"

Her question was ignored. "May I please speak with your daughter, ma'am?"

"I'm sorry, but Nikole left on her bike this morning... I think she said she was going to see her friend John."

_Target has connections with top priority. Must gain knowledge of whereabouts…_

He flashed the frazzled woman a calm smile. "Do you have a photograph of Nikole?"

The woman turned her back to him for a second. "ANDY!" she shouted to somebody in the upstairs area of the house. "GET ME A PICTURE OF NIKOLE, WILL YA?"

The officer's ears strained to hear the faint thud of footsteps coming down the stairs. He slowly looked up, and was greeted coldly by a tall man with bright, rust-colored hair and harsh, slate eyes. Despite the burliness the officer was now face-to-face with though, he was not intimidated. Nothing intimidated him.

"Not sure what the hell is goin' on," the man slurred tiredly as he jammed a small piece of paper into the officer's outstretched hand, "but here ya go, officer. Now, care to tell me why you're so goddamn interested in talkin' to my daughter?"

_Disregard. High stress levels in voice are irrelevant._

"I just need to ask her some questions regarding a recent incident. Nothing to worry about."

Like he'd done with the other photograph he'd collected, he concentrated on the girl's facial details: frigid blue eyes masked under naturally thick lashes, tawny skin, and long red hair with black-tipped sidebangs. _Match. Target recognized. _

"Your daughter's a lovely-looking girl. You two are lucky to have somebody like her." He waved the picture in front of the girl's parents. "Would you mind if I kept this?"

"Be our guest," the woman shrugged indifferently. "I'm just wondering - there was a big guy on a Harley bike looking for Nikole this morning, too. Would this, by any chance, have something to do with that?"

The officer shook his head. "No. I wouldn't worry about him." He flashed the fatigued-looking couple one last small smile. "Thanks for your cooperation."

The door slammed shut as he walked away. He didn't bother saying anything. He had what he wanted. _Memory, file – terminate humans. Store for later use._

The officer slid into the driver's seat, and looked at the two pictures he had collected within the past ten minutes. _Targets acquired. Commence termination._

He started the cruiser up silently, and slowly drove out of the neighborhood with a determined look in his eye. He had business to take care of.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Traffic jam, 1200 HR_

He had been searching for well over an hour now. The big, leather-clad man on the Fat Boy found himself growing rather annoyed at his inability to acquire the two teens he had been sent to protect. He shouldn't have been annoyed, however; the CPU implanted in the man's metal skull saw to erasing the memory of the emotion as quickly as it had appeared. He found it rather puzzling that he'd felt annoyance to begin with. He was, after all, a robot - a reprogrammed T-800 model. _Functional error, detected. Commence deletion of error. Deletion, complete. Model T-800, functions at 100%._

It was all very odd and mystical to the man. No matter though.

The Harley Davidson inched forward with the congested Reseda traffic. The man merely sat patiently on the bike, and waited for something to happen.

And something did happen. His ears caught a repetitive whine - the sound of a dirtbike. No, two dirtbikes, to be precise. Both seemed to be coming from the canals to his right.

He looked over just in time to see three teens; two boys were riding on an orange and white bike, and a girl was riding on a blue and white bike. He did a scan of the two driving the bikes to make sure they were the ones he had been ordered to guard.

_John Connor – Identity, positive._

_Nikole Paulsen – Identity, positive._

The man had found the teens.

He couldn't wait to reach them anymore. He maneuvered his bike out of the traffic lane, and cut through alleys and back roads. He had acquired his priorities; now, it was his job to make sure they stayed safe for the time being.

The man pressed the motorcycle on. He had a mission to carry out.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**WHA-BAM! Well, you guys now have the search for the kids from the terminators perspectives. AND... you have an idea of why Nikole is so important now. Her sitch will be explained with more detail later on. In the meantime, ENJOY! AND DON'T FORGET, R&R! REVIEWS ARE POWER! :D**


	3. Murphy's Law

**Author's Note:**OOH-RAH, PEOPLE! CHAPTER 3 IS HERE! :D

**Disclaimer:**I own… my creativity. IT'S MINE! XD

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

"So, are we counting ourselves as cool people now, Johnny-boy?" I asked after we'd parked our bikes by the Galleria.

John gave me a funny look. "What? Why would I think that?"

"Well, if you haven't noticed yet," I explained with a grin as I hopped off the railing I'd been perching on, "you put your bike next to a Kawasaki."

He looked to the left, and saw that he had, in fact, parked his dirtbike next to a bigass maroon Kawasaki KZ1000. He grinned as he looked farther down the line to see more Kawasakis, Suzukis, and Hondas twice the size of ours.

He turned to me with his arms folded across his chest and a goofy smile on his face. "Yep, I'm definitely considerin' myself cool now, Nik."

"This is all really wonderful and all that other crap, but can we go to the arcade now?" Tim asked impatiently.

"YES, Hanson, we're going to the arcade now." John jumped off his bike, and started walking to the mall doors at the far end of the garage. "Don't get your panties in a bunch."

We all jogged to the mall entrance, up the stairs, and weaved through the slew of people inside, until we were standing in front of the arcade. I swear to god, I could seriously hear a chorus of angels singing glories as I looked up at the flashing neon lights and blacklights dotting the ceiling from the inside. At the moment, I was in heaven.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

John quickly passed out a twenty dollar bill to me and Tim, and then he took off for the Afterburner game in the far back corner of the arcade. I, meanwhile, changed my twenty into a bunch of quarters, and decided to give the Lethal Enforcers game a try. I jammed a couple quarters into the coin slot, and picked up one of the brightly colored plastic guns. I inhaled slowly.

_Okay Paulsen, just like daddy taught you… Hand over the other to keep it steady… that's it…_

The game started up. I exhaled, and opened fire.

Virtual bad guys started going down as I shot at them with expected accuracy. One would crumple to the floor, and my gun would twitch to one side and hit another dead in the chest. As corny as I sound when I say this, I was on fire.

_Daddy taught me well. You all better watch out, 'cause Dead-Eye Paulsen's gonna cap your ass big-time…_

"Holy_ shit!_" somebody behind me exclaimed.

I allowed my virtual self to get peppered with bullets, turned around, and saw John gawking at me like I'd just sprouted wings. I quirked an eyebrow.

"What are you so surprised about?"

"Whaddaya think, genius? You're, like, a _god _with a fucking gun. It's actually kinda' scary how good you are."

"Ha, you can thank my dad and his military training for that one," I smirked. I looked at the Afterburner game in the way back, then at John. "I'm surprised you aren't tearing Afterburner up right now – or did you already unleash your mad skills and shit on it?"

"Nah, some kid was there already, and he didn't wanna surrender his spot." He jammed his hands in his jeans pockets. "You wanna play Missile Command?"

"Eh, I'll watch, thanks. I suck at that game."

John shrugged. "Suit yourself."

I followed him over to the Missile Command console, and watched as he put in a couple of quarters, and proceeded to wipe out the little blips raining down on the screen. His left hand rolled the movement ball everywhere, and the fingers on his right hand were rapidly pressing the fire buttons like his life depended on it. His face had scrunched up in concentration, and he'd begun to stoop over the screen. In all honesty, I thought he was starting to look like some no-life hardcore gamer.

The missiles started coming faster, and John started pressing buttons faster. I watched with a smirk on my face. Any second now, he was gonna miss; and as soon as he did, he was dunzo.

Just to piss him off, I leaned over his shoulder when he started missing a couple missiles. "Don't screw up," I drawled impishly.

"Shut up," he grunted.

It was too late though; another missile exploded at the bottom of the screen, and it flashed bright colors and 'GAME OVER'.

John turned to me with an irritated look on his face. "You suck."

I grinned. "Thank you. I do try."

He lightly socked me in the arm as Tim jogged over to us. "Hey man, I'm gonna go get some quarters, 'kay?"

"All right." He walked over to the Afterburner game to see if it was still being occupied, and was happy to see that it was empty. He jumped in, and fired it up. I watched with a curious look on my face.

"You ever get screwed up with pilot controls?" I asked.

"Nope. My mom taught me pilot controls. It's actually pretty easy, once you get the hang of it," John explained as he shot a couple of MiGs out of the sky. "I could teach you sometime if you're game, Nik."

I nodded thoughtfully. To be honest, I liked the idea of it.

All of a sudden, Tim crashed into the Afterburner game, panting nervously. "Hey man, there's a cop scopin' for you. Check it out!" His eyes locked on me. "He's lookin' for you too, Nik."

_Wait – huh? That can't be right…_

I peered over the top of the game, and sure enough, there was a tall blonde cop asking somebody if he'd seen us. I held my breath, and waited to see what both he and the kid he was talking to would do.

_Don't give us away... Kid, for the love of everything that's holy, DON'T POINT AT US…_

But, as Murphy's Law dictates, the kid went right ahead and pointed an index finger at me and John; and everything that could've gone wrong, went wrong, right then and there.

_Crap. Crap, crap, CRAAAAPPPP..._

The cop shoved the kid to the side, and started walking towards us with a dark glint in his eyes. I gulped.

"Just get outta here, man. I'll cover for you. You too, Nik. Go!"

Tim didn't have to tell us twice. The both of us bolted for the back door of the arcade, and burst into the back halls of the mall. We started sprinting towards the stairs leading to the garage.

I looked at John with a panicked glimmer in my eyes. "John, what's going on?"

He veered right. "I dunno. C'mon, let's get the hell outta here."

I felt my heart rise in my throat as I tagged behind John. I was really weirded out now; I had no idea what was happening, John had no idea what was happening, and we were running away from a cop that looked like he wanted to kill us. What the _hell, _man?

We shot past a worker with a can of Pepsi in his hand. "Hey! You aren't supposed to be in here!" he shouted behind us. We ignored him, and kept on running, until we weren't that far from a set of double doors that led out to the main area of the mall.

John ran to get the door open, but skidded to a stop when a big guy in black leather walked in, a box of roses in his meaty right hand. He all of a sudden reached inside the box, and to my horror, pulled out a shotgun. He cocked it as he walked over the roses without a care in the world.

_Oh shit. Ohhh shit, oh shit, OH SHIT…_

John gasped, and before I knew it, he was dragging me back the way we came, looking for a place to hide. He jiggled a doorknob and pushed against a door on his right, but to no avail. It was locked tight.

My eyes roamed the hall, and they fell on the cop stalking towards us. He pulled out a pistol, and aimed it at John. He sucked in a terrified breath, and looked from the cop, to the big guy with the shotgun.

I shivered with fear. We were trapped, stuck between two guys with guns aimed at our heads. We had nowhere to run.

"Get down," the man in leather said in a monotonous voice.

John yanked me to the floor as the man shot at the cop. There was an exploding sound, then a _splat_as the shell buried itself into the cop. My stomach churned as the realization that the cop had been shot slammed into me.

The weirdest thing happened then. The man pulled me and John off the floor, and turned his back to the cop, like he was attempting to shield us. I heard the cop load his pistol. Then, he started shooting at the man. All I felt during that ordeal was a slight jolt as the man's back was littered with bullets. The both of us screamed as an entire magazine was used on the guy, and we didn't stop as we waited for our "protector" to drop dead like a sack of potatoes.

He wasn't dead though, even after the cop had wasted a mag and a half on him. He smashed has forearm into the locked door, and shoved us through hurriedly. I clenched my eyes shut as I listened to the man cock the shotgun again, and proceeded to shoot the cop. Again, he would shoot, and there would be a splatting sound as the cop's body absorbed the shot's force. The man fired six shots before it was silent in the hall again. John and I peered around the corner, looking to see what had happened as we scaredly drew air into our lungs.

The cop lay on the floor, the shotgun shells sticking out of his body. It was a gruesome and odd sight to see, but what made it even more gruesome and odd were the six liquid metal-like craters in the cop's body. To be honest, I didn't know whether to feel horrified or like I'd been sorta' mind-fucked.

All of a sudden, the craters started to shrink, and then they disappeared. As soon as they were gone, the cop stood up, and charged at the big man like he'd never been shot. He wrapped his spindly hands around the barrel of the shotgun, and attempted to yank it out of the other man's hands. When nothing happened, the cop grasped his shoulders, and pinned him against the wall with ease. He spun around, and threw him through a plaster wall opposite the cement wall, which now had a big crack where the man's head had been. My stomach twitched at the sight of it.

I felt John's hand grip mine, and he dragged me to the stairwell a few feet away from us. We both flew down the stairs to the ground-level garage, the place that we'd parked our bikes in. I made a beeline for my bike, and John made a beeline for his.

I sat on my bike, and tried to start it up. With a cry of terror, I realized that it wouldn't start up. No sound came from the bike as I tried to kickstart it.

"Shit! My bike's dead!"

"Forget yours!" John took my wrist, yanked me off my bike, and pulled me towards his. "Get on mine!"

I obeyed, and wrapped my arms around his stomach, eyes frantically scanning the garage for the cop. I swallowed nervously. "Hurry up… I want outta here-"

John growled. "Can it, Nik, I'm working on it!" His hands were shaking as he fumbled for the choke. He tried to kickstart his bike, but all he got was a low grumble. He tried again; the same grumble came from the bike.

_No. Oh, no no no no no no… _

"Come on!" John shouted at the bike, voice shaking as he pawed around for the choke.

A door slammed shut, and we looked up, eyes wide open like we were deer caught in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler, to see the cop coming towards us.

"John, he's getting closer!" I panicked.

"Dammit! COME ON!"

Suddenly, the choke caught, the bike threw itself into gear, and we shot out of the garage. We swerved through the maze of cars and towards the exit as fast as John's bike would let us. I looked over my shoulder, and saw the cop sprinting towards us. I croaked as he slowly began to gain.

"Ohhh myyyy gooodddd… go, go, go, go, go!" I shrilled.

John drove the bike up a small exit ramp, and we soared over a half wall. The bike bounced when it landed on the pavement before snarling forward, and towards the fast-approaching traffic. John tilted the bike to the left, and narrowly avoided slamming his front end into a tow truck. I swore, and clung to John in squeamish terror as we darted through the slew of cars.

"WHERE THE HELL ARE WE GOING!" I yelled over the deafening chorus of car and truck horns.

"THE CANALS! THE COP CAN'T FIND US THERE!"

John pressed his dirtbike on towards the canals; he sharply turned right, throttled down the ramp, went through a large puddle of water, and finally skidded to a stop. He looked behind him, and after a few seconds of scanning our surroundings, exhaled heavily in relief. The cop wasn't anywhere in sight. We'd lost him.

Cautiously, I looked behind my shoulder, paranoia getting the best of me. As soon as I did, there was a chorus of screeching tires and horns, and before I even knew what the hell was happening, a big black tow truck - the same one we had cut off - flew off the bridge behind us, and crashed down. Inside, I saw the driver sit up - the cop. My blood froze.

"OHHH SHIT!" I screeched. "GO GO GO GO GO!"

John's green eyes grew as big as teacup saucers. He hit the gas on the bike, and we throttled off just as the truck jerked into motion. I snaked my arms tightly around John's tensed stomach, and desperately tried not scream.

We pressed the bike on, until we came to a fork in the canals. Without a moment's hesitation, John swerved the bike to the left. I looked behind, and saw the tow truck cut to the left sharply. In its attempt to keep up with us, it crashed against the walls of the canal. I looked back towards the front as sparks flew from the truck every time its sides grazed the walls.

"HANG ON!" John shouted.

We went up a little ramp, and suddenly, the front half of John's bike was airborne. My legs automatically squeezed the bike to keep myself from sliding off.

The front half hit the ground with a _thunk! _As soon as both wheels were on the ground again, John hit the turbo on his bike, and milked every last little bit of it as we went through a short tunnel.

The turbo didn't help much though. It only got the bike a couple feet ahead of the truck, which was now rapidly gaining speed.

"DAMMIT! CAN'T THIS THING GO ANY FASTER?"

"THIS IS ALL THE POWER I CAN GET OUTTA IT!"

There was a high-pitched squeak as the truck went through the tunnel behind us. It couldn't exactly fit in it, but that didn't stop the cop from still driving through it. The roof of the truck was cleanly sliced off by the roof of the tunnel. I sucked in a breath of air.

"THIS GUY'S LOST HIS FUCKING MIND!" I shouted to John over the combined roar of the engines.

I was suddenly aware of a large shadow that blanketed me, John, and the bike in darkness. My heart pounded erratically as I realized the truck was right behind us now.

"FUCK!" I screamed. "MOVE IT, JOHN!"

The front bumper of the truck slammed into the bike's back tire, and we both jolted forward from the force. Then, we were hit a second time. This time, John yelped, and I buried my face into his shoulder, now officially convinced that we were gonna be mowed over by the truck.

But, something happened. I heard the low thrum of a motorcycle next to us, and I looked over; there, sitting easy-as-you-please on the bike, was the big guy that had shielded us from the pistol fire earlier at the mall. He quickly sidled over to John's bike, and plucked me off the bike by the shirt. I freaked, and thrashed my legs wildly until he plunked me down on the seat. Then, he did the same with John, only he picked him up by his pack. John yelled as his dirtbike flew out behind him, and was immediately crushed under the tow truck; the poor kid didn't stop yelling until the man dropped him on the seat in front of him.

The three of us shot ahead of the truck with ease. Once we had put some distance between us and the truck, the man whipped out his shotgun, and fired at one of the front tires. As the truck pulled hard to the left, the cop quickly lost control of the wheel, and he crashed into a divider at a dangerously fast speed. The truck crumpled up, and tipped to the side, gas spilling out of the tank and a metal and wire cable swinging in front of it.

The cable swung by the gas tank, and it sparked as it hit the metal. Everything went into slow motion for a second as the gas in the tank ignited.

BOOM.

The entire truck blazed into a giant ball of fire the moment that spark was created. I watched in wide-eyed awe as the flames seemed to touch the sky. I said absolutely nothing – it seemed like the only thing I was really capable of doing at the moment.

The man remained wary though; he kept his gun pointed at the fire, waiting to see if something managed to break free from the wall of flames. Suddenly, a figure emerged. Without missing a beat, he cocked the shotgun, and kept his finger on the trigger.

A glowing, slowly-melting tire lazily rolled past us, the only object to make it out of the fire. Relieved, I inhaled and exhaled slowly. The cop was dead. We were safe.

Now satisfied that his job was done, the man put away the shotgun, and started up his bike. Then, the three of us took off down the canals, and didn't look back again.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**WOOT! This was, by far, my most favorite chappie to write. ENJOY GUYS, AND STAY TUNED FOR CHAPTER 4! :D**


	4. Priorities

**Author's Note:**OOH BOY! That last chapter was fun! Hopefully, this one is even more fun than the last one. ENJOY!

**Disclaimer:**I own… a self-made tie-dye shirt. WOOT! XD

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

John felt like he was having a mental breakdown right now. He and Nik Paulsen had nearly been shot to death by a psycho policeman, then chased through the canals by the same cop in a giant tow truck. Now, he and Nik were riding through Reseda on a motorcycle with some guy they didn't even know, and he'd been the one to get the tow truck off their tail by shooting a tire, and making the damn thing explode. At the moment, John wanted to scream, or crawl in a hole – hell, ANYTHING to vent the panic and hysteria that was coursing through his thirteen-year old brain.

He craned his head over his shoulder to look at his and Nik's savior, a big guy in a black leather jacket, leather pants, and leather boots. Suddenly, he couldn't take not knowing why the he and his best friend had nearly been killed. His chest started heaving as he hyperventilated.

"Okay, time out! Stop the bike! Time out! C'mon, stop the bike!" he ordered as he hit his fingers with his palm in a time-out gesture. He wanted explanations, and damn it, he wanted them _right now_.

With a shrug, the man got off the busy road, and pulled into a deserted alley. As soon as the motorcycle had come to a complete stop, John slid off the bike, and stared at him with a bewildered expression.

"Now don't take this the wrong way, but you _are_ a terminator, right?"

Nik's face scrunched up in confusion. "A what?"

As Nik's question went unacknowledged, the man nodded silently. "Yes. Cyberdyne Systems, Model 101."

_Oh holy fuck, this is seriously NOT happening. He did NOT just say that. I have to be dreaming right now…_

A sick feeling churned in John's already-queasy stomach. He cautiously went around to the back of the bike, and gently prodded at one of the many bullet wounds in the man's back. When he took his finger away, a thin ring of blood circled the tip of it.

_Oh my god, he really is one of them. _

John looked away from his finger, to a pale-faced Nik. "Are you seeing this?"

Nik swallowed, eyes wide as saucers. "Am I? How the hell is this guy still alive? He should be dead!" As hysteria started taking over, her voice began to rise higher. "I'm imagining things right now, aren't I? This guy can't be bleeding and still alive! He's gotta have a vest on!" She jabbed a shaking finger into an entry wound, and immediately started gasping when the tip of her finger came out covered in rust-red blood. He had no vest; the man had really been shot – but he was still alive. "Oh, Jesus H. Christ! What the hell's going on? Oh, HOLY FUCK!"

John blinked. "So I'm not dreaming," he said to himself in a near-silent whisper.

All of a sudden, he felt like his stomach had bottomed out. There was no denying it – his life had just been saved by a terminator, the one thing that his mother had vehemently warned him to be wary of before she was shipped off to Pescadero - a goddamn ROBOT. His head was reeling as the realization hit him.

"Holy shit," John breathed. "You're really real. I mean, huh!" He took a step back, and sucked in some air so he wouldn't pass out from shock. "You're like a machine inside, right? But sorta' alive outside?"

"I'm a cybernetic organism. Living tissue over metal endoskeleton."

Out of the corner of his eye, John saw Nik's jaw drop. "Bullshit – you're a ROBOT? Oh, what a load of shit!"

_If only you knew, Paulsen…_

He slowly reached out, and prodded at the terminator's face. Even with the thick layer of skin covering it, John could feel the impeccably smooth metal skull underneath, could feel the harsh coolness of it radiating through the warmth of his cheek – something possessed only by a Skynet terminator. He shuddered, and turned to Nik.

"Nik – touch his face," he said as evenly as he could.

"Oh, don't tell me you're buying into this crap, Connor! This guy-"

"You think he's lying? Just do it!"

She did – and her eyes went wide. "John, his face… It's-it's-it's… Oh my god, he's really…"

John nodded. "Yeah, he is." He swallowed thickly, and gazed at the terminator. "This is intense... get a grip, John!" He slowly breathed in and out through his nose, and tried to calm down. Then, with a steely glint in his eyes, he said, "Okay – you aren't here to kill me or Nik. I figured that part out for myself. So, what's the deal?"

"My mission is to protect you, as well as your friend Nik."

"Yeah, who sent you?" John asked him suspiciously.

"You did. Thirty-five years from now, you reprogram me to be your protector here in this time."

John exhaled heavily. "This is deep."

The terminator nodded once. "We need to leave the city before the authorities begin searching for us."

John wordlessly obeyed. He sat in between Nik and the terminator, and held on to his broad shoulders tightly. He sighed as the motorcycle roared to life, and cruised down the streets to the nearest interstate. At the moment, John was pretty sure that his life had completely gone to hell. The same went for Nik's, too.

After minutes of watching cars and strip malls pass by in blurs, John looked behind his back at Nik, whose normally tough blue eyes were swimming with fear and confusion.

"Hey, you okay?"

"Physically or mentally?"

"Both."

"Physically, I'm just peachy," she shrugged. "Mentally, I think I've gone batshit." Nik sighed deeply, and shook her head. "Jesus Christ, I seriously can't believe this is all happening... It all feels like one really screwed-up dream."

John nodded. "Yeah… it does, doesn't it?"

_It doesn't feel like one – it IS one. It's all one big, fat, scary-as-hell, god-awful, screwed-up dream… and we're caught right in the middle of it. _

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

My head was still reeling from shock and dizziness after nearly an hour of being on the road with John and the man he insisted on calling a 'terminator'. I'd been lost, confused, and having one HELL of a panic attack during the conversation between John and the terminator, and to be honest, things hadn't changed much, even though I'd had a shit-ton of time to figure things out for myself. I think I'd been more focused on the fact that we'd almost been squashed by a tow truck, then on the fact that the guy who had saved us was really a robot, and less focused on pondering the current state of things.

"You've been quiet for a while."

I jumped in my seat a little. When I realized it was just John talking, I relaxed a little.

_C'mon Paulsen, breathe… You're okay now… Relax…_

"I'm just trying to make sense of things right now..." I shook my head. "I'm still pretty lost, to be honest. I had zero idea what you and the robot were talking about in the alley," I admitted.

"Yeah, it's a long story."

I shrugged. "I'm pretty patient."

"You're gonna think I'm nuts."

"John, I just came _this _close to dying a few hours ago, and now I'm riding around with you and a damn robot," I frowned as I showed him the tiny one-inch space that was between my thumb and index finger. "I'll believe anything right now."

"All right, fine." He sighed. "So, there's supposed to be a huge nuclear holocaust in three years that's caused by this system of machines, called Skynet. It's supposed to wipe all the humans on Earth, but some survive, and start fighting against the machines… This making sense so far?"

I nodded. "Yeah, it is. You're good."

"Okay… So, I end up surviving, and at some point, I become the leader of the human army." John's face scrunched up as he tried to remember what else he wanted to tell me. "Before my mom was sent to Pescadero, she told me that I'd 'lead the human resistance to victory', but I dunno if that actually happens. Whatever. Anyway, so I become the human army leader, and Skynet doesn't like that. This still making sense?"

"Yep."

"You're taking this good, Paulsen. I'm surprised you haven't flipped a shit by now."

"Um, thank you?"

"Anytime. Now, where was I? Oh yeah – Skynet sends its terminators back to kill me in some shape or form. The first one tried to kill my mom back in 1981, but that totally went to hell, 'cause my mom destroyed it."

"Okay... What about now?"

John tapped his chin in thought. "Now... looks like Skynet wants to try and kill me again, with you as an added bonus," he decided. Suddenly, a look of shock passed across his face as he seemed to figure out something. "Aw, SHIT! That cop that was chasing us in the canals was Skynet's terminator!"

_Oh joy. The cop's a damn terminator. I shoulda' known._

"Oh, well that's just wonderful," I said sarcastically. "If that cop's a terminator, and the guy that's driving the fat boy's a terminator too, then how come they aren't acting all buddy-buddy and both trying to kill us?"

John shook his head. "Didn't you hear what this guy said in the alley? I reprogram him in thirty-five years to keep us safe. There's no way he can kill us. He'd just be failing his mission if he did that."

"All right... so the cop's a terminator, and the biker guy's a terminator. Other than their programming, what's the difference between the two?"

"I dunno, actually. Hang on a sec." John poked the biker in one of his meaty shoulders. "So this other guy, he's a terminator like you, right?"

"Not like me," he said. "A T-1000, advanced prototype."

"You mean more advanced than you are?"

"Yes. A mimetic polyalloy," the terminator replied tersely.

John's head tilted to one side at the mention of 'mimetic polyalloy'. He had no idea what the guy was talking about. Quite honestly, neither did I.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Liquid metal."

Well, that explained the shotgun shells disappearing into the cop/terminator's body.

John tapped the terminator on the shoulder again. "Where are we going?"

"We have to get out of the city immediately, and avoid the authorities."

I groaned. "Jesus Christ, now we've got the cops riding up our asses, too?"

John shook his head. "Oh yeah. This isn't even the worst of it though, I think." He returned his attention back to the terminator. "Listen, I gotta stop by my house. I wanna pick up some stuff."

"Negative," the terminator told John. "The T-1000 would definitely try to reacquire you and Nik there."

"You sure?"

The terminator nodded. "I would."

John punched the palm of his hand. "Well, that's great."

"Dude, I saw that coming from a mile away."

"Sure you did."

We suddenly slowed down, and pulled into the back parking lot of a liquor store with a phonebooth sitting outside. Once the bike had stopped, John got off, and ran to the phonebooth to give his foster parents a ring.

"Look, Todd and Janelle are dicks," John said as he rifled around in his pockets for a quarter, "but I gotta warn 'em." He pulled his hands out of his pockets, and cursed when he found them quarterless and empty. "Shit, you got a quarter?"

I turned out my pockets; all that came out was some dryer lint, Wrigley's gum wrappers, and my Swiss army knife. "I'm broke."

The terminator stepped forward then. He smashed his forearm into the change holder, and stepped away as quarters spilled out onto the ground.

"That works, too!"

John shoved a quarter into the machine, and dialed the number for his place. I crept over to the booth, and stuck my head inside as I listened to the dial tone. Somebody picked up on the first ring.

"Hello?"

"Janelle, it's me!" John practically yelled.

"John?"

"Is everything all right?" he pressed anxiously. "Are you guys okay?"

"Sure honey, everything's okay. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

There was brief silence on the line before Janelle spoke again. "John, it's late. Honey, I was beginning to worry about you. If you hurry home, we can sit down and have dinner together. I'm making beef stew."

That last part seriously caught me off-guard. I'd been expecting the woman to bitch at John about scaring the living daylights out of her, like she usually did when he was out for more than 12 hours and she didn't know where he was. The nicey-nicey 'let's have a real family dinner together' thing though? Not so much. It didn't sound like Janelle at all.

John noticed the change too, because he covered the speaking end of the phone and whispered, "Something's wrong. She's _never _this nice."

"John? Where are you?"

I could pick out Todd's voice in the background, as well as John's German Sheppard, Max, barking crazily from outside.

"Why the hell is the goddamn dog barking?" Todd grumbled. "HEY! SHUT UP, YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT!"

Realization dawned on John's face. He looked at the terminator. "The dog's really barking."

"You think Max knows he's there or something?" I asked.

Before John could answer, we both heard a loud THUNK on the other end of the line, almost as if somebody had chucked a cleaver at one of the kitchen cupboards. Then, Janelle was the only person on the other end talking. My stomach started to flip-flop a little at the eerie silence coming from John's house.

"John honey, it's late. Please don't make me worry," Janelle sighed, like she was getting impatient waiting for John.

Again, John looked at the terminator. "Could he already be there?"

Without a word, he took the phone from John, and held it to his ear. I had this feeling that he was gonna find out what exactly was going on. Turns out I was right.

"Honey, are you okay?"

"I'm right here," the terminator said in a flawless imitation of John's voice. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure you're all right?"

He covered the mouthpiece with one hand, and simultaneously asked John, "What's the dog's name?"

"Max."

The terminator immediately put the phone back to his ear, and put on his John voice again. "Hey Janelle, what's wrong with Wolfie? I can hear him barking. Is he okay?"

"Wolfie's fine, honey. Wolfie's just fine." Janelle's voice turned harsh. "Where are you?"

At that point, the terminator had slammed the phone on the receiver. He gave John a stoic, apologetic look. "Your foster parents are dead," he informed John bluntly.

_Oh my god. He found them._

"Your parents may be dead as well, Nik," the terminator told me. My jaw hung open.

"What? No, there's no way! They can't be dead!" I zipped over to the phone. "MOVE," I ordered John as I frantically shoved a quarter in the machine and dialed the number for my house. It rang three times, and picked up on the fourth ring. By then, my throat was choking up, like somebody had crammed a bunch of rocks down it.

There was labored breathing on the other end, like the person was slowly losing air. "He-elp," the answerer pleaded me in a high-pitched, weak whisper.

It was my mom.

"Mom! It's me, Nik! Are you okay?"

She struggled to draw in another breath. She sounded like she was drowning. "Ni-ik... A... po-lice-man... killed y-your fath-er, and tried... to kill... me. He-he's look-ing for you now, Nik. He's go-ing to kill you next." Mom let out an ugly, painful gasp that brought tears to my eyes at the sound of it.

"Ssh! You're gonna be okay! Don't worry, you'll be okay! Don't say that!" I begged her as tears threatened to overwhelm me. "Mom, don't do this to me! Don't you dare die on me!"

"R-run, Nik. Be-fore he... finds... you."

The line suddenly went dead; the only thing I heard now was the dial tone. Tears were now running down my face as I clutched the phone in my left hand and my stomach in my right hand. My whole world was starting to fall apart... My parents were dead, murdered by the T-1000.

And he was coming for me now.

Bile started rising in my throat. "I think I'm gonna be sick!" I rasped as I bolted out of the phone booth. I dropped to my knees in front of a strip of grass, and retched as sobs wracked my body.

After a few seconds, my stomach had rid itself of the contents in it; I sat up, my throat burning and my head reeling, and wrapped my arms around myself tightly, shaking like a leaf.

"No, no, no, they can't be dead, they can't be dead," I choked, my voice squeaking and cracking in my horror-stricken grief. "I want my parents back… Goddamn it, they can't be dead…"

Briefly, I noticed John come over, and he kneeled beside me. I, feeling the need for comfort, turned towards him, and buried my face in his shoulder.

"They can't be dead John, they can't be," I whimpered as tears cascaded down my cheeks. "How the fuck could they just die on me? How could they let that fucking robot just _murder _them? My dad's in the Army, for Christ's sake! He could've taken him out easily!"

He loosely wrapped his arms around my shoulders, and squeezed me in a gentle hug. "I don't know, Nik, I don't know," he said quietly. "Ah, shit Paulsen, I'm sorry…"

"That fucking thing killed my parents, and now it's gonna kill me. I can't let that thing kill me."

"You won't, and I sure as hell won't, either. You're not going anywhere, Nik."

John's reassurance managed to calm me down a bit, and help clear my head. As I pulled away from his shoulder, wiped my face dry, and looked into those green eyes of his, I took a deep breath. It was time for me to get a grip, and get my shit together.

_Whatever it takes, I'll make sure that bastard machine pays for what it's done._

I looked at the terminator. "I wanna know how my parents and John's foster parents were murdered by this thing," I said as straight-forwardly as possible.

"The most logical method it used to kill your parents may have been to manipulate its own body into the form of one of the caretakers, then kill them off."

John untangled his arms from around me, and jumped up in surprise. "Wait a minute, you're telling me that this thing can imitate ANYTHING it touches?" he gaped in disbelief.

"Anything it samples by physical contact," the terminator replied.

"Get real... So it could disguise itself as... a pack of cigarettes?"

"No, I don't think it could make itself _that _small," I said as I shook my head.

The terminator agreed. "No, only an object of equal size."

"So why didn't it just become a bomb to get me and Nik?"

"It can't form complex machines. Guns and explosives have chemicals, moving parts. It doesn't work that way. But it can form solid metal objects," the terminator explained.

"Like what?"

"Knives, and stabbing weapons."

"So, we're pretty much on the run from a giant, shape shifting kitchen knife," I snorted. "Oh, JOY. Now I'm _really _losing my mind."

"Che, now you know what my mom felt like when she had to deal with a terminator – and what _I _feel like, for that matter," John muttered as he sat down on the hood of a rusted and beat-up seventies muscle car.

"What was it like, living with your mom?"

John shrugged. "For lack of a better word, interesting. See, we spent a lot of time in Nicaragua and places like that. For a while, she was with this crazy ex-Green Beret guy, running guns. Then there were some other guys. She'd shack up with anybody she could learn from so she could teach me how to be this 'great military leader'." John's eyes clouded up slightly. "Then she gets busted, and it's like, 'Sorry kid, your mom's a psycho. Didn't you know?' It's like everything I've been brought up to believe is all made of bullshit. I hated her for that," John said as he angrily hit the car's hood. "But everything she said's true. She knew, and nobody believed her... Not even me." He slid off the car, and stood tall in front of the terminator.

Suddenly, I could see the gears turning in John's head. I already didn't like where this was going. "John Connor, what're you thinking?"

"Listen, we gotta get her outta there."

"You're kidding me – you're saying you wanna bust your mom outta Pescadero? You're joking, right?"

"No, I'm not. I'm serious about this, Nik."

Thankfully, the terminator was just as skeptical about John's plan as I was. "Negative," he said. "The T-1000's highest probability for success now would be to copy Sarah Connor and to wait for you to make contact with her."

"Great. What happens to her?"

"Typically, the subject being copied is terminated," the terminator answered John.

John went bug-eyed as soon as the words left the terminator's mouth. The mere thought of his mother being killed off by the T-1000 was pretty horrific in itself. God, even I was freaking out after hearing that.

"SHIT! Why didn't you tell me? We gotta go right now!" he cried. Grabbing me by the forearm and dragging me behind him, he started running towards the bike, but the terminator grabbed his shirt and held him back firmly.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?" I snapped.

"Negative," he told him, ignoring me. "That's not a mission priority."

_Oh, it is now, pal!_

"FUCK YOU! SHE'S A PRIORITY TO ME!" John shouted. He then started banging his fists on the terminator's chest in an attempt to make him let go.

Not a chance. That guy held on to John with an iron grip.

"Hey, goddammit, what's your problem? Dammit, HELP! HELP!"

"This does not help our mission," the terminator stated stoicly.

"Fucking A! Let go of him!" I yelled as I pounded on his bicep.

"GET THIS PSYCHO OFFA ME! HELP! HELP! I'M BEING KIDNAPPED! GET THIS PSYCHO OFFA ME!" John snarled at the terminator. "Lemme go!"

The terminator did just that; he released his grip on John's t-shirt, and he landed on his back with a low thud.

"Why the hell did you do that?" John snapped.

"Because you told me to."

John's pissy attitude immediately evaporated as soon as he heard this. He slowly stood up with a look of intrigue in his eyes. "What?" A gleeful grin stretched from ear to ear. "You have to do what I say, huh?"

"That's one of my mission parameters."

"Prove it. Stand on one foot," John ordered.

The terminator wordlessly obeyed; he raised his right leg, and stood motionless that way.

"All right... How 'bout Nik? Do you have to obey her, too?"

The terminator nodded. "Affirmative. That is another one of my mission parameters."

John and I looked at each other with this awe-struck, totally psyched look on our faces. "This is excellent!" I squealed in a low voice.

"Yes!" John cheered. "Cool! My own terminator!"

Just then, we noticed two beefy-looking guys walking towards us. "Hey kid, you okay?" one with greasy, curly brown hair asked John.

John snorted. "Take a hike, Bozo."

The guy's buddy, a black guy with a big flat-top, shook his head. "Man, let's get outta here!"

The guy that John had just told off stared at the both of us lividly as his face started to burn red. "Fuck you, you little dipshit!" he spat as he pointed at John.

"Dipshit?" John grinned at the guy evilly, and stood between me and the terminator with his arms crossed in front of his chest. "Put your leg down," he whispered to the terminator, who quickly dropped his leg back to the ground. Then, John's attention was back on the jocks. "Did you call 'moi' a dipshit?" He turned to me. "Nik, this asshole called me a dipshit. Whaddaya think we should do with him?"

I went along with the act. "Whaddaya say we have our buddy here rough him up a bit?"

"And this is why you're my best friend, Paulsen." To the terminator he said, "Grab this guy, I can't believe him."

The terminator seized the guy by his hair, and easily lifted him off the ground as he screamed and flailed his legs around. Me? I was doubling over and cracking up over the whole thing. I had to admit, it was pretty damn funny.

"Now who's the dipshit, you jock douchebag?"

The terminator dropped the guy to the ground, and crushed his buddy's hand in his own when he tried to put him in a headlock. He then pushed him on the hood of the car, and reached into his pants for something. When he pulled his hand out, he had a gun, and it was aimed at the guy. Without even hesitating, he put his finger on the trigger, and slowly started to squeeze.

I balked. "OH SHIT, he's gonna shoot!"

"NO!" John yelled, and in a panic, he threw all his weight on the terminator's arm. It just barely jerked to the right as he fired.

"Put the gun down, now!"

The terminator neatly placed the gun down on the asphalt, and looked at John blankly. Meanwhile, the jocks quickly bolted for their car, and throttled off into the night.

John snatched the gun up off the ground by the barrel, and gripped it tightly, like he was afraid that the terminator would snatch it out of his hands if he didn't hold on to it tight enough. "Jesus, you were gonna kill that guy!" he exclaimed in shock.

"Of course, I'm a terminator."

I stared at him, eyes wide in horror. "That doesn't give you the fucking excuse to go around shooting people, though!" I snapped in a high-pitched voice.

Pointing the butt end of the gun at the terminator, John slowly said, "Listen to me _very _carefully, 'kay? You aren't a terminator anymore, all right? You got that? You can't just go around killing people!"

"Why?"

_Oh, you've gotta be fucking kidding me!_

"Whaddaya mean why? 'Cause you can't!"

"Why?" the terminator repeated.

"Because you just _can't_, okay? Trust me on this!"

I stood up. "Really, trust him, and me, on this!" I added in for extra emphasis. "The moment you go off acting like you're Rambo and start shooting, we're all in for a WORLD of deep shit! For the love of God, _don't go there_!"

John breathed out through his nose, and grasped the gun tighter. "Now, we're gonna go get my mom, and I _order _you to help me." He held the other end of the pistol out to the terminator, who silently took it from him and stuffed it back in his pants.

We all got back on the fat boy then, and chugged down the interstate.

We were taking a trip to the Pescadero psych ward.

_Jesus H. Christ, help me now. _

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**DONE! :D ENJOY GUYS, AND R&R! :D :D :D**


	5. Breakout in Pescadero

**Author's Note:**Woo-hoo! They're off to save Sarah! Enjoy guys! :D

**Disclaimer:**I own a notebook with the Battlestar Galactica logo on it. WOOT! XD

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

_A couple hours later, Pescadero State Mental Hospital_

We finally reached Pescadero after a couple hours of hauling some ass on the interstate. We were cruising towards the entrance gate when John ordered the terminator to stop.

"Why do we stop here?" the terminator asked as he stared straight ahead at the long stretch of asphalt in front of him.

John, pursing his lips into a thin line, clapped him on the shoulders. "Now, you gotta promise me that you're not gonna kill anyone, right?"

I snorted. "No offense or anything, but don'tcha think that asking a _terminator NOT_to kill anyone's kinda'… well, stupid?" I piped up.

John nodded in partial agreement, and he was damn right to. He and I both knew that asking a killing machine not to kill was almost like asking a person to stop breathing. It was the kind of thing that just couldn't be done.

But, the terminator surprised me when he nodded and said, "Right." Just like that, no sweat.

_Okay, looks like I've been proven wrong…_

"You swear?"

Confused, he turned to look at John. "What?"

John sighed like he had to explain right and wrong to a five-year old. "Just put up your hand and say, 'I swear I won't kill anyone.'" He held up his right hand for the terminator to see.

He obediently raised his right hand, and said, "I swear I will not kill anyone."

Satisfied, John nodded. "All right, let's go."

The terminator released the brakes on the Fat Boy, and we motored over to the entrance gate. We pulled up to a small booth with a security guard inside, and waved. The guard shook his head, and slowly came outside with a bored frown on his wrinkly face.

"Visiting hours is ten to four, Monday through Friday…"

The terminator silently got off the bike, and pulled out his pistol as he walked over to the guard. Immediately, the guard reached for the gun holstered in his belt, but he was shot in the legs before he could even turn the safety off. He crumpled to the ground, screaming and clutching at his shins.

"What the hell are you doing!" John exclaimed as he vaulted off the bike and ran over to the booth.

The terminator briefly looked at John, then at the guard crying, "You son-of-a-bitch! You shot me!" and finally at the booth. He punched his forearm through the glass, and pressed the button to open the gate. Then, he rolled the guard over on his stomach, and took the magazines hanging on his belt.

I looked at John in disbelief, then pointed accusingly at the terminator. "I told you! I told you! I knew it! I _knew _you wouldn't keep your end of that deal!"

"Okay, maybe you had a point," John hollered to me. "Fucking D, he swore he wouldn't kill anyone…"

He returned to the bike, and sat down in front of me when the terminator returned with the magazines in his hand. He passed them to John, who dropped them in his pack with an angry glare on his face.

"He'll live," he said as he sat on the bike, and steered us into the parking lot.

I shook my head and scowled. "Jackass."

The terminator blinked in mute silence, and drove on to the parking garage.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

After taking ten or so odd minutes to park the motorcycle in the garage and figure out some sort of escape plan, John, Nik, and the terminator headed into the mental hospital. He noticed that the three of them were the only ones that actually had some color to them. The entire place was white; the patients were white, the orderlies were white, the walls were white – EVERYTHING, all white. It was like all the life had been sucked out of the damn place. Knowing that his mom had been locked up in a place as god-awful as this one now gave John a major case of the shivers.

"Six years in this place… Jesus H. Christ…" John mumbled. "It sucks here. God, if I'd known what this place was like before I let my mom get shipped off here…"

Nik reached out and massaged his shoulder with her thumb. "Don't worry, she isn't gonna deal with this shit any longer, John. We're gonna get her outta here," she told him reassuringly. "I know we are."

John nodded silently, and kept walking through the threadbare, colorless hallways.

"Nik, John, we must move quickly," the terminator said after a moment of awkward silence. "We cannot risk taking our time to find Sarah Connor."

"He's right; we can't be draggin' our asses." John took Nik's hand in his, and quickened his pace. "C'mon, she's probably up in maximum security."

"How do you know that?"

"Nik, this is my _mom _we're talking about. She almost blew up a computer factory. Maximum Security's probably the only place these dicks could stick her in."

"Good point."

They all started running through the halls as security guards and orderlies stared on at them in silent surprise. Most of them weren't used to seeing a kid in Pescadero, much less two of them; and the man, he really was a sight to see. Nobody like the terminator had ever been present in the mental hospital. It really was a strange sight to behold.

"How far away IS maximum security?" Nik panted lightly.

"It's one floor above us. Let's move. We're getting closer."

All of a sudden, there was a short, high-pitched noise, a sound like a seal barking - an alarm. Somebody had escaped; John had the weirdest feeling that his mother was the one trying to bust her ass outta this joint. If that was the case, well, he didn't blame her one bit.

"Run," the terminator ordered the two teens simply. "We must find Sarah Connor immediately."

The three sped up towards the elevators at the end of the hall they were in, and slipped inside one. Nik hit the second floor button, stepped back from the elevator panel, and proceeded to drum her fingers against the little box's dull titanium walls.

John impatiently tapped his foot. _C'mon, c'mon, c'mon... this is taking too damn long._

The door opened, and John could hear the sound of bare feet sprinting towards them. He started moving towards the sound, but he was held back by the terminator.

"Wait here." He cocked his shotgun, and slowly stepped out of the elevator. By then, the footsteps had grown louder. However, as soon as the terminator was out of the little metal box, there was a high-pitched gasp, and a squeaking sound as somebody skidded to a stop on the floor. John could easily hear ragged, frightened breathing, and the palms of hands slapping at the linoleum floor as the person backed away from the terminator.

"No... NO!" the person – a woman – screamed hysterically. "NOOO!"

_Holy shit, it IS mom!_

John immediately understood what was going on; his mother had seen the terminator, and jumped to conclusions – BAD conclusions. He and Nik sprinted out of the elevator, him calling out, "Mom, wait! MOM!"

"John! What the hell just happened?"

He glanced at Nik, then around the corner at his mother, who was running down the halls like a scared rabbit. "She saw him!" He explained as he pointed at the terminator. "She probably thinks he's been sent here by Skynet to kill her!"

Suddenly, he watched as an orderly slid out in front of his mother to stop her, and Sarah cartwheeled over him. "C'MON!" he shouted frantically to other orderlies that were crowding around her now. Not willing to accept defeat – or death, for that matter – Sarah tried to army-crawl away to safety, but she was pulled back by the bloody-nosed blond orderly. She screamed.

"NO! NO! NO!" she shrieked as people with night sticks and leather restraints surrounded her.

John couldn't stand to watch anymore; he tried to run ahead, but was again stopped by the terminator. "Help her!" he yelled at him pleadingly.

"Wait here," was all the terminator said to him and Nik. He walked towards the group of struggling white orderlies with the shotgun pointed up.

John could see his mother's eyes bulging with fear as the machine came closer to her and the others. "HE'LL KILL US ALL! HE'LL KILL US ALL!"

The terminator was now standing over the orderlies. He picked one up by his shirt collar, and tossed him into a barred window with ease; he grabbed another and threw him through a glass door; and the third he rammed in the stomach with his nightstick, then pushed him at a wall. Out of nowhere, a security guard slammed her forearm into his face, and it jerked to the left. But, he looked at her, grabbed her chin, and shoved her away with inhuman strength. Once things had been taken care of, he walked back to Sarah.

By now, John couldn't bear being so far away from his mother, so he ran over to her, Nik in tow. He dropped down to his knees, and clutched her bony shoulders. "Mom, are you okay?" When she didn't answer, he inhaled sharply. "MOM!" he shouted.

She ripped her gaze away from the terminator, and looked at John. Her green eyes were the size of baseballs, and her breathing was a hell of a lot faster than it should've been. She looked absolutely scared SHITLESS at the moment.

"Jesus..." Nik said softly.

The terminator held his hand out.

"Come with me if you want to live."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

"It's okay mom, he's here to help! It's okay!"

John's mom wasn't buying the friendly terminator bit though, even after he'd freed her from the orderlies that had tried to restrain her. In fact, Sarah Connor kinda' looked like she wanted to piss herself, she was so scared. This was definitely not the kick-ass, gung-ho woman from the photograph stashed away in John's pack; this was the broken, scared-shitless version of that woman, someone so beaten down and out of her element that it kinda' scared me.

Sarah's eyes fell on me. They narrowed into suspicious slits as they took in my somewhat-messy appearance. "Who the hell are you?" she demanded in a low whisper.

John shook his head. "No time. Let's get outta here first." He grabbed one of her small hands with his left, and motioned to me with his right. "Nik, help me out."

I took Sarah's other hand in mine, and pulled her to her feet with John's help. "Jesus, you're light," I observed after pulling Sarah up.

She blinked and looked at me, but said nothing. I pursed my lips slightly. "Okay, forget I even said anything..."

We collected ourselves, and we were about to cut and run, when I noticed the gun. It had flown out of the chick security guard's holster when the terminator pushed her down, and it was now was lying right behind where Sarah had been sitting a couple seconds ago. When I saw that little murder tool just sitting there on the floor, it was like my brain disconnected from the rest of my body for a couple of moments; without thinking, I snatched it up, checked to make sure the safety was on, and (believe it or not) stuffed the barrel in my pants.

John looked at me strangely as he watched me. "What the hell's the gun for, Nik?"

"Dunno, really. It's for my own protection, I guess," I shrugged. "C'mon, let's go-"

There was a soft _clack _on the floor that stopped me mid-sentence. My eyes twitched to the left, and saw that an older orderly - or doctor, I don't give a shit what his job title is - had dropped a plastic hypo cover to the floor, and was staring at something behind me, eyes about to bulge out of their sockets. I looked at John and Sarah, and they had the same wigged-out look on their faces.

"What?"

"Nik, look behind you," John told me in a high-pitched whisper.

I did. There, standing on our side of a barred door, was the T-1000. My heart stopped for a brief second as I took in all six menacing feet of him. This thing looked ready to kill.

Slowly, it raised the pistol gripped in its hand, and aimed it at us. My face paled, and I gasped.

"Go!" the terminator shouted to us before he whipped out the shotgun and proceeded to blow a hole in the T-1000.

John, Sarah, and I bolted for the elevator, and waited for the terminator to get inside. He blew another hole in the T-1000, then high-tailed it for the elevator as the T-1000 returned the fire with his gun. He made it inside just as the doors closed, and stood on the other side of the elevator, back against the wall, shotgun at the ready in case the T-1000 were to somehow mosey his way into the little metal box.

He looked at me. "Please give me the sidearm, Nik. I need it."

With a confused nod, I pulled the pistol out of my pants, and held it out to the terminator. Just as he was about to take it though, something slashed across my right arm, and the next thing I knew, blood was surging out of my arm, and I gasped as white-hot pain seared through my bicep.

There was also a screeching noise. I looked up, and saw that the T-1000 had turned his arms into these pterodactyl-like claw thingies, and used them to pry the elevator doors apart. As soon as he did that though, the terminator quickly fired at his head, and the explosion of the shot ripped it in two. He staggered back, and let go of the door. Then, we were on our way down to the garage.

Once the T-1000 was gone, I focused on my arm. Trying not to scream from the pain, I clamped my hand down over the gash as hard and as tightly as I could.

John's face went pale as he looked at me. "Holy shit Nik, Are you okay?"

I shook my head stiffly, and gritted my teeth, the pain in my arm completely overriding my ability to speak.

Immediately, he got down on his knees, and ripped away a strip from his overshirt; he then wrapped it around my bleeding arm, and tied it in a tight knot. I cried out as he yanked on the ties sharply.

To make matters worse, Sarah was hypriventilating in another corner of the elevator. "What the fuck is it? What the fuck is going on?"

We suddenly heard a light _clunk _above us. For a moment, it was dead-silent in the elevator; then, there was a noise that sounded like nails on a chalkboard as a blade poked through the roof - only a few inches in front of my face. John inhaled sharply, and pulled me back against the wall.

The blade disappeared, and reappeared in front of the terminator, who quickly shot at it with the shotgun. "Get down," he said in his monotonous voice.

I crouched in the corner with John and Sarah as the T-1000 tried to skewer us with his blade from above. He would stab the ceiling, then quickly remove his blade before the terminator had time to shoot at it. He poked his blade in random places so the terminator wouldn't be able to predict where he was gonna strike next.

At one point, the terminator had wormed his way into our corner of the elevator, and now stood next to Sarah. Of course, Sarah couldn't take cowering like a defenseless child as the T-1000 tried to stick us anymore, so she grabbed both my gun and the one sticking out of the terminator's pants, and started shooting at the ceiling.

Sarah had been shooting for eight seconds when the blade came down again, only it razed past her right shoulder, then swiftly came back up. Both John and Sarah cried out in fear as the latter dropped to the floor of the elevator, simultaneously clutching her shoulder in a vice-like grip and shoving a new mag into the terminator's pistol. Then, she was back on her feet and shooting at the ceiling, until the elevator came to a stop at the first floor of the parking garage, and I had to drag her out of it.

Her head swiveled around to look behind her back, and she saw a security guard and his cruiser coming up the aisle towards us. Without hesitation, Sarah threw one of the guns to the ground, and ran straight at the cruiser with the other one pointed at the guard. He screeched to a stop in front of the wild-looking woman with the pistol, and sat frozen in his seat.

Sarah moved to the side a little. "Out of the car!" she shouted. When the guard tried to radio in on his walkie for help, she fired a single shot at the windshield before he had the chance to press the 'talk' button. "RIGHT NOW!" she shouted louder.

The guard held his hands up in surrender to Sarah, and slowly got out of the driver's seat. Once he was out of the car, the terminator walked over to him, and shoved him roughly into a concrete support column. "Come. We must get out of here before the T-1000 attempts to capture you three."

I glanced over my shoulder, and saw a silvery blob of liquid pooling on the floor of the elevator; it quickly took on the form of the cop, and started running - then sprinting - towards us. I leapt in the backseat of the cruiser just as the T-1000 gained a bit of speed.

"GET US OUTTA HERE!"

The terminator put the car in reverse, and slammed his foot down on the gas pedal. We flew backwards down the aisle, and towards the exit as fast as the cruiser could go. The speed, however, didn't rattle the T-1000 as it gained on us, nor did it rattle Sarah as she poked her upper body out through the passenger window, and started shooting at it like somebody in a drive-by.

She emptied a mag into the T-1000, then passed the gun back to John, declaring, "I'm out!"

John shoved another clip into the pistol. "Here!" he said as he passed the pistol back to Sarah.

The terminator then passed the shotgun back to John. "Reload!"

John was about to take the gun, but I took it before he could. "I got it. You worry about your mom, 'kay?"

He nodded as I started putting shotgun shells into the mag loading port. I put in six, and handed it back to the terminator. He quickly fired a shell at the T-1000, who staggered back from the force, and nodded curtly in satisfaction.

We suddenly shot out of the parking garage, and drove backwards towards the entrance gate. "Hang on," the terminator told us before he spun the cruiser around, and gunned forward out of the entrance.

I looked over my shoulder, and saw the T-1000 right behind us, his arms stretched out in front of him like he was trying to pull off his version of a superman pose. His arms morphed into the pterodachtyl claws. Next thing I knew, he had lunged at the rear bumper, and hooked himself to it.

As we sped down the road, Sarah looked over her shoulder too, and gasped. The T-1000 had now climbed up on the cruiser. It raised one arm high over its head, smashed it through the back window, and ripped it to the side to clear away the glass. "JOHN!" she squeaked, then pulled him towards her. She then realized I was unprotected, so she too pulled me towards her as shards of glass sprayed into the backseat.

The T-1000 kept swinging into the backseat, trying to get me and John, and he kept this up until the terminator finally put the shotgun over his shoulder and fired a shell at him. "Here, drive!" he ordered Sarah just as he stuck his body out his window. He aimed at the T-1000's left claw just as it was about to take another swing at the backseat, and blew it off. Then, he fired another shell at the T-1000, and he flew off the back, and rolled away.

Once the terminator was back to driving, John and I cautiously peeked through the rear window to see if the T-1000 was behind us. He was, but to our relief, he was growing smaller in the distance. When he'd all but disappeared from our sights, I slumped against the backseat, and exhaled deeply. We weren't gonna see him anytime soon, hopefully.

I looked over at John, who still had his head sticking out the rear window. "What's wrong?" I asked in a raspy voice.

"There's still part of him stuck in the back," John said simply.

I stretched my neck, and looked at the back of the cruiser; sure enough, what was left of the T-1000's claw was still stuck in the back. John stuck his hand through the window, grabbed the stubby claw, and hastily chucked it away. When it was far behind us, John relaxed a little.

He looked over at me. "You okay? How's the arm?"

My gaze flicked down to my right arm, and saw that blood had seeped through the improv bandage John had given me. I cursed.

"Still oozin'. It would be fucking spectacular if I could get my hands on another bandage," I muttered.

He pursed his lips, undid the bloodied bandage, and tossed it out the back window. Then, he slipped my bandanna off my head, and tied it around my arm. I sucked in air through my nose sharply and winced as he tied the bandanna in a knot tightly.

_Jesus, never even thought about the bandanna..._

"That good, Nik?"

I nodded. "Thanks," I said softly.

"Anytime."

I gave him a slight smile, then I turned around, and watched the trees and roads pass by us silently.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

About an hour had passed since John, Nik, and the others had escaped from Pescadero and the clutches of the T-1000, and so far, it hadn't been seen. John, even though he found it extremely nervewrecking to know that he and Nik were still being hunted by a Skynet terminator, was slightly comforted to know that it had zero idea where everyone was, and apparently hadn't tried to follow him and the rest of them.

He felt a light tap on his shoulder. Knowing it was Nik, he looked up at her. "What's up, Paulsen? You see anything?"

She shook her head. "No. Haven't seen anything for the past hour. I think it's safe to say we're okay for right now."

"Gotcha." John turned around to face his mother. "He's not back there. There's nobody behind us."

Sarah relaxed a little at the news, and John could've sworn he heard her say "Thank god" under her breath. Then, she returned her focus to John. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah."

"Hey, you in the back."

Nik silently looked over her left shoulder at Sarah.

"You all right?"

"Well, excluding my right arm, I'm great. Never been better."

"Good."

John looked back at Nik. "You bleed through that bandage yet, Nik?"

"Nope. Thing's still white," she replied in a tired voice. "How's our terminator faring?"

He gave her a thumbs-up. He then scooted closer to the terminator, and watched him curiously as he drove down the road without the help of the headlights. "Can you even see anything?"

"I see everything."

_Well, okay then._

Out of the corner of his eye, John noticed Sarah waving him towards her. "C'mere," she said quickly.

He leaned in towards her as she wrapped her arms around him. John smiled and wrapped his arms around her, thinking for a moment that she was giving him a much-needed hug; that thought evaporated from his head when she started pawing at him and checking to see if he'd been hurt during the escape from Pescadero. Angrily, John pulled away from his mother.

"I said I was okay!" he snapped.

Sarah's eyes shined with aggravation. "John," she said sharply, "it was _stupid _of you and your friend to go there. God_dammit_, you've gotta be smarter than that! You almost got yourself killed!" She sighed. "What were you thinking? You _cannot _risk yourself, even for me! You understand? You're too important!"

_Why is she doing this to me? Nik and I were only trying to help!_

John heard the crunch of glass as Nik readjusted herself in the backseat. He imagined her giving his mom a dirty look as she said, "You know Sarah, we could've easily left you back at that psych ward to deal with the T-1000. You could at least give the kid a goddamn _thank you__._"

Sarah's eyes narrowed. "You keep your mouth shut, brat. What I do or say to my son is none of your fucking business, got it?" She pointed a finger at Nik. "He's too important to be running around with you and trying to be a goddamn hero."

_This isn't fair! I don't need this!_

John couldn't believe that this was happening. He'd just wanted to save his mother, that's all! Yeah, it had been stupid, but at least they'd all gotten outta there in one piece! A ping-pong ball-sized lump built in his throat. "But... I had to get you outta that place," he said quietly. "I'm sorry."

Sarah shook her head. "I don't need your help. I can take care of myself," she said icily.

John just stared at his mother as tears silently rolled down his cheeks. He couldn't believe what she'd said to him. _I don't need your help? I can take care of myself? _No mother in her right mind would ever say something like that to her own kid. What Sarah had said was just cold and downright heartless. John absolutely HATED her for that.

His gaze met the terminator's. "What's wrong with your eyes?"

John frowned, and shook his head. "Nothing," he mumbled. He quickly looked away from the terminator, and stared out the window.

_Why? Why me?_

He felt Nik's hand slip into his. He gripped it tightly, and didn't let go for the longest time.

"You okay, John?" Nik whispered softly.

"I guess."

Neither of them said much beyond that, but the both of them moved closer together, and sat shoulder-to-shoulder for the next few hours, quietly staring out the window as the world passed them in blurs.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**YAY! FINISHED WITH THIS CHAPPIE! ENJOY GUYS! :D**


	6. Stitches

**Author's Note: **Last chapter was pretty badass, huh? Well, this one shall be even more badass! OOH-RAH! XD

**Disclaimer: **I own a pressed rose petal my friend gave me. THANK YOU, LISA! :D

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

It was close to ten when we pulled off the road for the night. I'd almost nodded off on John's shoulder when the terminator turned into an abandoned gas station with a repair shop and business office behind the pumps. When I felt the cruiser jerk to a stop, I arched my back, and stretched out my overly stiff legs, blearily scanning my surroundings from the back seat.

"Where the hell are we?" I yawned. "Why are we stopping?"

John straightened up, and groaned as he rubbed his eyes tiredly. "We gotta stop for the night. Everybody's tired as hell, plus we gotta take care of the cuts and all that other shit." He then sleepily rolled out of the backseat, and walked over to the terminator, who had lifted up one of the repair shop doors so the cruiser could wheel inside. Once it was in the garage, the terminator grabbed John by his shirt collar, and yanked him inside. John, sort of peeved at the lack of gentleness, told the terminator to watch it, and dubbed him 'Lugnuts' in the process.

I chuckled. _Aw, how cute. John's nicknaming machines now._

"Nice pet name," I smirked as I slid out of the backseat. "Lugnuts… That was cute."

John shrugged. "First thing that came to mind."

Before I had the chance to reply, I felt a hand close around my left arm. I jumped, thinking for a second that it was the T-1000. I looked behind me; it was just the terminator, who was giving me his never-changing blank look. I exhaled in relief before shooting a glare at him.

"Jesus Christ, you scared the crap outta me."

"My apologies," the terminator said simply. "We need to clean and sew up your wound."

My stomach twisted in dread. "Right _now_?" _  
_

"Yes. Your wound has been exposed to the elements longer and stands greater risk of bacterial infection than Sarah Connor's, so yours must be taken care of first."

The thought of having stitches put in my arm, let alone having it done in a body shop and by someone with no medical experience, made me feel nauseous. Seriously, this was the kind of shit that only ever happened in movies. Were it a perfect, normal world, I would've had a doctor and I would've been getting this taken care of in a _clean _hospital. Unfortunately, any semblance of normalcy had disappeared the second I ran out of the Galleria with John.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me."

"Too bad kid, he's not," I heard Sarah say in the background before she slammed a big bottle of rubbing alcohol down on a table. "You're getting stitched up first, whether you like it or not."

I glared at her. "Okay, lady? Would it KILL you to cut the 'kid' shit and call me Nik?"

"That's Sarah to you, _Nik. _Nik… The hell kind of a name is _that?_" She rolled her eyes, and waved me over to the table and chair that had been set up. "Whatever, fuck it. Let's just get this over with."

With a loud sigh, I trudged over to the table, and slowly sat down. I rested my arm on the table next to me, and tried my best to relax.

I looked at Sarah and the terminator. "So, who's doing the sewing?"

Sarah pointed to the terminator with her thumb. "Him. I'm sure as fuck not sewing you up."

_Yeah, I figured you'd say that_.

I gulped queasily. "All right, I'm ready," I said as evenly as possible.

"We must clean the wound first," the terminator told me as he took the rubbing alcohol and a cotton ball, and poured some on it. He then gave me his attempt at an apologetic look. "The cleansing may hurt, Nik."

I swallowed the panicked lump in my throat. "I know. Let's just get this over with." I looked away from my arm, and squeezed my eyes shut, wishing that somebody could've had the good sense to just punch me in the head and knock me out.

Shame that nobody had that good sense.

The terminator slipped the bandage off my arm, then gently swabbed at the cut on my bicep. A stinging, biting, red-hot pain shot up and down my arm as the rubbing alcohol killed off all the bad bacteria, and I inhaled sharply, trying like hell not to shriek.

_FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK - HURRY UP, GODDAMN IT!_

The swabbing kept going for another few seconds, and then it was over. By then, I wanted to cry, my arm hurt so bad. I forced my eyes open, and briefly looked at the cut. It was raw and red; it looked fucking disgusting at the moment. Plus, it hurt like a BITCH.

_Fuck my life…_

"We must now close the wound up."

The previous nausea immediately got worse the second the terminator spoke. In a couple of seconds, I was gonna feel some _real_ pain, and all hell was gonna break loose. Now I REALLY wanted someone to punch me in the head and knock me out.

My eyes darted around the room, looking for something to help keep my mind occupied. That something happened to be John, who was standing off in the far corner of the garage, watching everything with a concerned frown on his face. I quickly waved him over.

"Do something to keep my mind offa this," I hissed to him in a scared whisper. "Or have some mercy and kick me in the head or something."

He held one hand out. "Hold my hand and don't look, 'kay? It'll be over soon, I promise."

I gulped, nodded, and grabbed his hand. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but I guess it would have to do. "Ready."

_Here we go – OH FUCKING GOD!_

Needle-sharp stitching thread was poked under my skin, through my arm, and up through again. I held John's hand in a vice-like grip, and gasped in pain as the terminator sewed up the cut on my bicep.

"It's okay, Nik, it's okay. He's almost done. You're almost stitched up," John said to try and calm me down. "It's okay, Nik. Trust me."

Snip.

Finally, the feeling of being stabbed in the arm repeatedly went away, and the terminator quickly finished with the stitches. He reached behind him for a roll of white gauze sitting on the table, and wrapped it around my arm. "This will heal in about fourteen days," he informed me as he tied the ends of the gauze in a neat knot. "Exercise caution, so as not to reopen the wound, Nik."

I gave the terminator a tired thumbs-up, and slumped in the chair. "Oh my GOD, that sucked," I panted.

"Wonderful, kid. Now get your ass outta the chair. We've got other people that need to get stitched and gauzed up."

I shot Sarah a peeved you-really-need-to-shut-up glare, and slid out of the seat. I walked around for a moment, gently pressing my fingers into the gauze; it stung a little, but for the most part it felt okay. _Not bad for a robot. _

"Hey Nik, can you c'mere and help me out with the light?" John called out to me. "Lugnuts needs it to see my mom's shoulder better."

I jogged over, and helped John hold the light over Sarah's bare back while the terminator set to work on her shoulder. He quickly swabbed the gash, and threaded the wire through her pale skin. She shivered, and inhaled shakily as the terminator pulled the wire through with a pair of pliers.

John's mouth curled into a small frown. "Listen, do you know what you're doing?"

"I have detailed files on human anatomy."

"I bet," Sarah said quietly. "Makes you a more efficient killer, right?"

"Correct."

I shivered a little. "There's a spooky thought," I murmured to myself.

As quickly as he had started, the terminator finished with Sarah, and taped some gauze over the stitches for good measure. Then, he shrugged out of his jacket, and pulled off his black t-shirt.

My brows furrowed in confusion. "Uh... what are you doing?"

"We aren't the only ones that need fixing, kid," Sarah muttered as she snatched the pliers off the table.

I tilted to the left. One fast glance and I knew why Sarah was brandishing a pair of needle nose pliers. The terminator's entire backside was littered with slugs. I couldn't help but cringe as I took in the almost Swiss cheese-like state of it; it was pretty bad.

As Sarah started fishing slugs out of the terminator's back with the pliers and a flashlight, John held the destroyed jacket up to the light, and his jaw sagged at the sheer amount of damage it had taken. He gawked at the terminator in awe. "Does it hurt when you get shot?"

"I sense injuries. The data could be called pain."

Sarah pulled another slug from the terminator's back, and dropped it on the table, where it mixed in with the other twelve. "Will these heal up?"

"Yes."

"Good," she said. "If you can't pass for human you're not much good to us."

John cocked his head to one side in curiosity. "How long do you live?" he asked. "Or last, or whatever..."

"120 years with my existing power cell."

I whistled. "Damn long time for a robot. Do you ever age on the outside?"

"No. I remain the same until I stop functioning, and then the tissue goes through the stages of decomposition."

"Interesting," I said.

"So, outside, you never change; but inside... You've gotta wonder…" John gazed at the terminator. "Can you learn stuff that you haven't been programmed with? So you can be... you know, more human, and not such a dork all the time?"

The terminator held John's eyes captive for a moment before he answered. "My CPU is a neural net processor, a learning computer. But Skynet sets the switch to 'read only' when we're sent out alone," he explained to him.

"Doesn't want you to do too much thinking, huh?"

"No."

A thoughtful look bloomed on John's face. "Can we reset the switch?"

"You can, but you must make an incision in my scalp in order to access my CPU," the terminator told John. "I will assist you with the procedure."

It was silent in the repair shop for a moment as we mulled over whether or not it was a good idea to be screwing around with the terminator's 'brain.' On one hand, we could reset the switch, and the terminator would learn things and blend in better. On the other hand, however, we could reset the switch, and he wouldn't come alive again. There was some risk to this, and everybody knew it.

Still, it couldn't hurt to try, could it?

Finally, Sarah spoke up. "Let's do it. John, gimme that X-Acto knife over there."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

"Nik, gimme some paper towels," Sarah ordered Nik after setting the bloody X-Acto knife down on the table.

John watched in silence as Nik ripped off some paper towels from the thick roll in her hand, and passed them to Sarah. She then wiped away the spots of blood on the terminator's exposed metal skull with this calm expression on her face, looking almost like a doctor performing brain surgery. He had to give his mom a thumbs-up for keeping a straight face the entire time.

The terminator nodded subtly after the blood on his skull had been cleared away. His blue-gray eyes glanced at the drill to his right, and Sarah took that as a silent order to have it ready for the next step in the process. "Rotate the two locking cylinders counter-clockwise," he instructed her.

John's mother quickly reversed the rotation of the drill, and hesitantly placed it in the slot of a screw. John could see that she was somewhat nervous about taking away pieces of the terminator's brain, not that he blamed her; hell, he would've been nervous, too.

"C'mon Sarah, it's not rocket science."

Sarah shot Nik a look of warning before returning her attention to the terminator's skull.

"Do it," he said stoically.

Without further hesitation, Sarah undid the two screws holding the terminator's CPU cover in place. When she was done, she tossed the drill off to the side.

"Now, open the port cover."

Nik passed Sarah another pair of pliers, then gave John a little help with the overhead light. They tilted it downwards as Sarah pinched one of the screws with the pliers.

"Pull to break the seal."

The cover came off with a soft hiss, and was quickly placed off to the side.

"Now, remove the shock-taping assembly."

Again, there was a soft hiss as the part was removed, and then it was placed off to the side.

"You can now access the CPU," the terminator informed Sarah.

Out of curiosity, both John and Nik stretched their necks to get a good look at the terminator's 'brain.' There, stuck deep inside the port, was the CPU - a little chip about the size of a Pink Pearl eraser. The two frowned as they looked at the small, brick-red piece of hardware.

"_That's _the CPU?" Nik said in slight disbelief. She snorted then. "Didn't see that coming."

"What were you expecting, Paulsen? A bigass motherboard?"

Nik nodded sheepishly. "Kinda'."

"Can you two shut it?" Sarah snapped at John and Nik. "I can't hear what he's saying."

They both shut up, and went back to holding up the light so Sarah could see what she was doing with more ease. Sarah, meanwhile, took the pliers, and lowered them into the port carefully.

"Hold the CPU by its base tab, and pull."

Sarah swiftly yanked the CPU out of the port. As soon as she did, the terminator froze; his pupils dilated, and his jaw slackened. He didn't even flinch when John snapped his fingers and waved his hand in front of his face, or when Nik pinched him and whistled in his ear.

"Nobody's home. Man's totally out to lunch."

"Yeah, no kidding," John agreed as he raised the terminator's right arm to see what would happen. Like he'd half expected it to, it remained frozen in the air, even when John poked at his hand; it would just return to the position he had put it in.

_Holy shit, it's like he's gone or something… Creepy…_

"Okay John, I think it's safe to say he's off now. We've gotta figure out how to reset..." Nik trailed off, and suddenly gasped. "John, look behind you RIGHT NOW!"

"What?" John slowly turned around. "Mom, do you see the pin switch?"

That's when he saw his mother with the small hammer raised over her head. All color drained from John's face when he realized what she was doing.

"NO! NO!" he shouted. Frantically, he lunged at the table, and covered the chip with his hands just as Sarah brought the hammer down. She just barely avoided crushing John's fingers with it.

"Out of my way John," she growled in a low voice.

"Don't kill him."

Sarah raised her head, and stared at John harshly. "_It, _John. Not him, _it._"

"Okay, _it. _But we need _it._"

"Listen to me, _listen_," Sarah hissed. "We are better off on our own."

"Are you fucking nuts, Sarah? He's the reason we're still alive!" Nik spat as she pointed at the terminator and pinned Sarah with a look of deep loathing.

"I don't give a flying fuck what that thing did for you and my son! It's a killing machine, and a burden on the three of us!"

_I would've been dead if it weren't for him! You should be happy that I'm here and still in one piece!_

"But he's the only proof we have, of the future and the war and all that!" John protested.

"Maybe." Sarah glanced over John's shoulder at the terminator with a cold glint in her eyes. "I don't trust it though."

"But he's my friend, all right? He's Nik's friend too! You can't do that to us!"

Sarah shook her head. "You don't know what it's like to kill one of these things, and if something goes wrong this could be our last chance, so _move_!" she snarled before she raised the hammer again.

John couldn't stand it anymore. He was so goddamn sick and tired of constantly being ordered around by his mother like he was a helpless child, and he was gonna do something about it right now, whether his mother liked it or not. His eyes steeled, and his body tensed angrily.

"Look mom, if I'm supposed to be this great military leader, maybe you should start listening to _my_ leadership ideas once in a while!"

Sarah froze, and looked at John with a pained expression. As much as he hated the look she was giving him now, John refused to back down.

He gazed up into his mother's harsh green eyes. "If my own mother won't, how do you expect anyone else to?"

By now, Sarah was taking deep breaths, and trying to gather herself up from the blow she'd just taken. She knew that John was right. She couldn't keep shooting her son down - she couldn't ignore his ideas anymore. If he couldn't get her to listen, then he had absolutely no chance of getting other people to do the same. A leader like that would only end up as a failure; and at the moment, there was no room for John to become a failure, especially when he had the future fate of humanity resting in his hands.

He coolly removed his hands from the table, and let them hang at his sides. Now, his mother had to make her choice. Would she kill the terminator, or would she spare him?

Sarah shook her head vigorously. The guilt of what she'd almost done and her son's words were too much for her to bear. She raised the hammer, and smashed it into the table, just narrowly missing the chip. She panted as she looked at the dent she'd made in the table, then at the still-intact CPU, and finally at John.

"Play it your way."

Then, she tossed the hammer on the table, and stormed away.

As he picked up the chip and reset the switch, John placidly smiled to himself; he'd won the argument of emotion vs. logic. It would take time, but he knew Sarah would accept it eventually.

Nik came over, and gave John a subtle nod. "Nice save."

"Thanks." He went over to the terminator, and placed the CPU in the port. "Here, gimme some light for a sec."

Nik quickly held the light above John, and watched as he jammed the chip inside the terminator's head. There was a low series of clicks, and then the terminator was moving again.

"Was there a problem?" he asked curiously.

"There was no problem." John glanced over at his mother with a knowing look. "None whatsoever."

Sarah shook her head, and looked away from John. He merely sighed.

_Don't worry, mom. It'll all make sense later. Just have a little faith, and this'll all be okay. I promise._

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

After John and I helped the terminator sew his head up, we both decided to get some shut-eye before tomorrow came. It was about midnight when we settled down in the cruiser. John was awake for about five minutes before he nodded off; me… well, it didn't take long for me to follow. As I curled up on the floor of the car, I listened to the even sound of his breathing as he slept on the backseat bench. It put me at ease, and within moments, I was deep in sleep, and slowly slipping into the weird world of my subconscious mind.

I began to dream...

_I was in a small room, and every inch of it was bathed in deep, pitch-black shadows. Somewhere, I could hear someone crying – my mom, from what it sounded like. As if on autopilot, I started stumbling through the blackness to the source of the crying._

_After what seemed like an eternity of tripping and running through the darkness, I saw a light in front of me. From there, it seemed like the crying was louder. Feeling desperate now, I ran to the light, hoping that mom was okay. _

_All of a sudden, the light seemed to swallow me whole, and it spat me out in the middle of my kitchen. I wasn't the only one in there, though; there were three other figures – and one of them was my mom, kneeling on the floor with the head of the second figure in her lap, sobbing and begging the third figure towering over her for… mercy. _

_Panic swelled in my chest. Who was this person standing over mom? Who was she holding in her lap? Why was she pleading for mercy? What the fuck was going on?_

_And that's when I saw the blood from the second figure pooling on the floor around her. Slowly, my gaze shifted from the blood to the figure – and I screamed._

_It was my dad my mom was cradling. He had a large, bloody, jagged gash in his stomach, almost like someone had tried to gut him with a serrated knife, and his eyes were glassy and wide with horror. They screamed at me to RUN. _

_But from WHAT? _

_At that moment, a shadow fell over me and and my parents. I looked behind my shoulder, trying to breathe - and felt the air rush out of my lungs when I could make out the form._

_It was the T-1000, and it was looking down at mom and I with an odd expression on its face. Its right arm was sticking out in front of its body in the form of a giant knife, and blood, my father's blood, was dripping off the blade. It smiled at us, a small, evil-looking smirk - and then it lunged blade first at mom, impaled her before she even had the chance to scream, and dropped her to the floor as its gaze shifted to me. She was of no importance to it, but me? I was everything, the primary target, the reward for all the bloodshed and murder._

_And it came, prowling silently and swiftly, to claim me._

_"NO!" I cried hysterically. "NO! DON'T, PLEASE!"_

_I didn't get a verbal response from it. Instead, its arms turned into needle-thin stilettos, and it stabbed them through my arms and into the floor. I tried to move, but I was pinned firmly. The shriek that followed as white-hot pain coursed through me could've shattered glass._

_"MAKE IT STOP!" I howled. "MAKE IT STOP!"_

_The T-1000 shook its head. "No," it answered in a deadly, monotonous croon. "Your termination guarantees the machines' continued survival, Nikole Paulsen. You will not destroy us." He slowly withdrew the stiletto going through my right arm, and positioned it over of my heart._

_"NO! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"_

_It smiled sadistically at me. "You will die, Nikole Paulsen."_

_Then, the T-1000 backed his left arm up, and stabbed me..._

"NO!" I bolted upright, hands clamped over my chest like I was trying to shield myself from the stiletto, back soaked with cold sweat, shoulders aching with the memory of being pinned to the floor of my kitchen. It was a dream; it wasn't real.

But I'd watched my parents die before my eyes. I'D DIED. All of it... it had felt so real... Even now my body was still screaming with the ghosts of raw terror and agony. Even now I couldn't stop clawing at my chest, desperately searching for the stiletto that had stabbed me, even though it was a figment of my imagination. The blood, the pain, the sheer _evil _in that robot's eyes and smile...

"Oh god, oh god, oh god... _fuck..._" Tears started spilling down my face as I tried to ball myself up into a fetal position. When a pair of arms suddenly snaked out and around me, I freaked out; I shrieked, terrified that maybe I WASN'T dreaming, and kicked and flailed my legs as I tried to break free from the hold.

"Nik, calm down! You're okay! It was just a bad dream! You're okay!" I heard somebody behind me say quietly, frantically. "C'mon, it's okay Nik! It's okay! C'mon, calm down, please!"

It was John. Just like that, any fight I had in me evaporated. I stopped kicking and struggling, and I collapsed against the bench with a huge, warbling breath.

"It felt so real, John. Holy _fuck..._"

"Ssh. It's okay." He pulled me towards him, and held me in a protective hug as tears formed in my eyes again. "Jesus Nik, what the hell happened?"

"I saw them die."

"Saw who die?"

"My parents... I saw what that... _thing..._ did to them. Oh god, it was awful," I sobbed. "It killed mom before she could even open her fucking mouth, and the look on his face..." I couldn't even say anything. That look on its face... There was no way of describing it, no way of describing the gore and the horror. How could I? How the fuck could any thirteen-year-old describe the murder of their own parents?

"Fucking... fucking _brutal..._" My words and voice trailed off as I started crying into John's shoulder. I couldn't take it anymore; I just wanted it all to stop. I just wanted to wake up and realize that this was all just one fucked-up nightmare. I didn't want to live with the image of my parents' butchered bodies, or the memory of my own demise anymore.

"You still wanna talk about it?" John asked me softly.

I shook my head. Right now, the nightmare was the last thing I wanted to talk about.

John nodded, and rested his cheek on the top of my head. "It'll be okay, Nik. Trust me, it'll be okay."

I wrapped my arms around him in a tight hug. "Stay here with me. Don't go."

"I'm here, Nik. I'm not going anywhere." John readjusted his position so that he now had his back to the bench. "I promise I'm not gonna leave you like this."

I nodded silently, and yawned as I rested my head in the crook of John's neck. I felt so drained now; I'd cried into John's shoulder until I couldn't cry anymore, and I'd spent all my energy struggling or latching onto John like a goddamn leech. At the moment, my body was desperate for sleep. However, I was afraid that I'd go right back into my house, and go through the hell of my parents' - and my own - death again. I wasn't about to repeat that, and if I had to, I'd stay up the rest of the night just to avoid it.

"You tired?"

I yawned out an exhausted 'yeah,' then shook my head. "I can't go back to sleep. I don't wanna see what happened to my parents again," I whispered.

"If it gets bad, I'll wake you up."

"Promise?"

"Promise." John pulled up his knees a little so I was sandwiched between his thighs and his chest, and breathed deeply. "C'mon, get some rest, Nik."

I didn't protest; I nestled into John, and closed my eyes. The last thing I heard him say was, "I'm not gonna leave you."

I inhaled deeply, and relaxed. Within moments, I was asleep.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**SHA-WEETNESS! CHAPTER 6 IS DONE! ENJOY GUYS, AND STAY TUNED FOR CHAPTER 7! :D**


	7. Smile?

**Author's Note:**So, did we likey the last chapter? If you did, good. If you're jonesing for more, even better! Enjoy, guys! :)

**Disclaimer:**I own a Deadbolt CD. TIKI MAN! XD

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

It was still dark outside when John woke up. When he looked out the repair shop's windows, he could see that the sky was a shade lighter than the rest of it on the horizon, but that was it. The rest of the sky was a dark navy blue, and still studded with dozens of gleaming stars.

John looked at the digital watch fastened around his right wrist – 4:37, it read. He released a low groan. _Fuck, I'm up early,_he thought drowsily. _This is a first._

He tried to readjust himself into a better sitting position, but was slightly surprised to discover that he couldn't move his legs; something was pinning John to the floor of the cruiser.

_What the hell?_

He felt something shift in his lap. Curious, John glanced down; he found Nik fast asleep, her head resting on his shoulder, her hands resting in her lap loosely.

The memory of the previous night immediately flooded John's mind. He remembered waking up at around one in the morning, and seeing Nik, drenched in cold sweat, thrashing wildly on the floor; he remembered putting his arms around her to comfort her after she woke up crying; he remembered her balling up in his lap as she told him the things she'd seen; and he remembered promising to her that he'd stay with her, and the look on her face after hearing that. It was the look on Nik's face that John remembered most vividly. It had been a combination of deep gratitude, relief, and – he could've sworn that he saw it in her eyes – love.

And he didn't mind that in the least bit. In fact, it actually put John at ease.

He tilted his head to one side, and just stared at Nik. She looked kinda' pretty when she was sleeping; she had this soft, innocent look on her face, almost like a little kid's, and her bangs framed her face in a gentle curve. To John, Nik looked more at peace in sleep than he'd ever seen before.

Nik groaned suddenly, and began to stir. Within seconds, she'd groggily opened her eyes, and had focused on John.

John couldn't move as Nik's piercing blue eyes gazed up at him. They had this 'secrets of the world and the human soul' kind of effect on him, and as creepy as it could be sometimes, it was hypnotic now, almost drug-like.

She blinked sleepily. "Morning," she yawned. "When the hell did you get up?"

"Couple minutes ago, to be honest." John tossed his head from side to side to loosen up the stiff muscles in his neck. "You sleep okay?"

"Yeah, I did," she nodded. "A helluva lot better than the first time."

"Good." John was suddenly aware of the burning sensation and full-to-bursting state of his bladder, so he gently coaxed Nik out of his lap.

Nik gave John a strange look. "You okay there, John?"

"Fine. Just really gotta take a piss at the moment," he answered, his voice slightly strained.

Nik's mouth formed a little oh, and she immediately scooted off his thighs. "Sorry 'bout that."

"You didn't know." John ducked out of the cruiser. "I'll be back in a sec, 'kay?" He then ran off towards the shop's small restroom before Nik could say anything in response, whether it be wise or - like her responses usually were - overly snarky.

John quickly relieved himself, and jogged back to the cruiser after twenty seconds had passed. When he got back, he found Nik lying on her back on the backseat bench, boredly twirling her swiss army knife in her right hand. John just stared at her as she spun the knife, blade out, around her hand like it was the most natural thing in the world to her.

"What the hell are you _doing_?"

"What's it look like I'm doing?" Nik shot back as she started weaving the knife through her fingers. "I'm screwin' around with my swiss army knife."

"I see that. Any particular reason _why _though?"

Nik shrugged. "Eh, force of habit, I guess." She wove the knife once more through her fingers, then she held the blade end of the knife between her thumb and index finger, and offered the handle to John. "Here, you up for a try?"

John frowned. "Nik…"

"What?"

"Are you okay? I mean, after last night and all…" It bothered John that Nik was suddenly so cavalier and calm, when she'd been on the verge of losing it only a few hours ago. He had no idea if she'd gotten over the dream already – which he would've called bullshit on, regardless of what she told him – or if she was just repressing it and trying to be tough. He really hoped she wasn't trying to hide anything.

"I'm fine, John. I'm okay now." She offered the handle of her knife to John a second time. "I'll say it again – you up for a try?"

John shook his head. _Forget it, she's not letting you know anything…_ "I dunno. I don't trust myself."

"It's easy. Here, watch." Nik held the handle in her right hand loosely. "Whatcha do is you flick it up, let it kinda' roll off the top of your hand, then you catch it just as it starts to fall... It's a little hard to explain, but it's a lot easier to understand when I show it to you." She then slowly twirled the blade around her hand. After a couple times, she stopped, and again offered the handle to John, this time with a soft, tired smile on her face. "You wanna give it a shot now, Connor?"

John rolled his shoulders. "Sure. I guess what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger," he mumbled as he took the swiss army knife from Nik. He practiced without the blade for a few moments (it turned out to be really easy, much to his satisfaction), then decided to whip out the actual knife part. He looked at the knife hesitantly before he began to twirl it; as soon as he did, he threw his free hand up in victory as the knife lazily spun around his other.

"Holy crap! I'm doing it!"

Nik laughed. "Round of applause for Mr. John Connor." She then proceeded to give John a golf clap. "What's he gonna do next?"

"Oh, you want more?" John smirked impishly. "I'll give you more." He started spinning the knife around his hand faster and faster, until Nik lost track of where she'd last seen the handle. When that happened, she bit her lip nervously.

"Don't go too fast John, otherwise that's gonna go flying-"

All of a sudden, the knife zinged through the air, and headed towards the padded part of the car door. Both teens went after it; John lunged for the handle, while Nik's hand shot out to try and catch it by the blade. Nik caught it first, but it flew out of her hand, and landed blade-down in the seat as John unintentionally tackled her on the bench.

Neither John or Nik did anything for a moment as the former laid on top of the latter; they only stared into each other's eyes, and mentally noted how close their faces were, which were separated by only three or four inches.

Nik's face turned a little pink at the close contact. John was pretty sure his had, too.

"Well... this is, um... interesting," Nik said in low whispery voice.

Indeed, it was; John was lying stomach-down on top of Nik, and he'd pinned her right arm above her head to the bench. John hadn't exactly meant for the arm-pinning to happen. Hell, he hadn't meant to have Nik sandwiched between his body and the backseat bench, PERIOD.

_Of course, look where I am now._

"Hey, uh, John? Not to sound rude or anything, but could you please get off me?"

John's face burned in embarrassment when he realized he was _still _lying on top of Nik. He hastily rolled off and scooted to one far end of the bench, all the while spewing different versions of "I'm sorry."

"I, uh… I'm really sorry 'bout that."

Nik waved off the apology. "It's okay. I'm fine with it." It took Nik a moment to realize what she'd said, and her face turned a mortified shade of purple when she did. "I-I mean I'm sure you didn't mean to or anything; like, we had no idea that that was gonna happen and just I'm pretty surprised and I'm sure you are too but it's no big deal and oh my god why can't I stop fucking talking… she trailed off. "It's just…"

"It's just what?"

"Well…" Nik bit her lip. "Sarah's still sleeping in here, and I think she would've flipped a shit if she'd seen you lying on me, ya know?"

John nodded. Nik had a point. To the two of them, there was nothing wrong; John winding up on top of Nik had been purely accidental, and frankly, the two were still too young and too embarrassed to enjoy the close contact. To Sarah, on the other hand, _everything _was wrong. John was a teenager, Nik was a teenager, and as far as every adult was concerned, there would've been no stopping the "_rampant _sexual activity" that would crop up if they didn't sit up and back off before anyone saw. If Sarah had seen them two seconds ago… Fuck, John's head ached just thinking about it.

"Makes sense."

Nik and John sat at opposite ends of the bench for a while, not sure what to say or do to get rid of the awkward silence that had settled in the back. Finally, after what seemed like an hour of staring up at the ceiling of the cruiser and thinking about anything _other _than what had happened between them, John coughed, and excused himself from the backseat. "I'm, um, gonna go see what the terminator's up to. Uh... yeah."

Before Nik could say anything, John walked away quickly so she wouldn't see the redness in his face.

_Jesus fucking Christ, that was awkward…_

He found the terminator standing frozen in front of a window with the shotgun in his hands. He cleared his throat to try and get his attention.

"You are up early," the terminator said in a low, flat voice. "I was not expecting that."

"Well, what were you expecting then?"

The terminator shrugged. "I was expecting you to sleep in later. I am aware that it is something that you adolescents do."

"Eh, I guess. I mean, I usually sleep in, but I'm really not that tired." John rubbed away the sand in the corners of his eyes with his thumb and index finger, and groaned. "Had one hell of a night, but I'm not that tired, honest."

The terminator turned to John, and silently looked at his face. John knew that he was thinking the exact opposite of what he'd told him as his gunmetal-like eyes briefly froze on the dark, purplish rings under his own eyes. "You look like you've been deprived of sleep. Did something happen last night that I was not aware of?"

John sighed, and looked down at the scuzzy carpet-covered floor. No trying to get out of this. "Nik had a bad dream last night," he said quietly. "It was really bad. She said she saw her parents die and she couldn't stop crying after she woke up."

"I do not see how you fit into this, John."

"I was the one that tried to calm her down and help her get back to sleep." The ghost of a smile graced John's lips. "I also kinda' acted as personal pillow."

"I see," the terminator nodded. "Is Nik all right now?"

"Yeah, she's fine, I think. She was acting really calm earlier, but I think it's a load of shit. I dunno though. I hope she's okay."

"As do I." The terminator wrenched himself away from the window, set the shotgun down on a table behind him, and proceeded to walk out of the repair shop with John's forearm gripped in his hand.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?" John hissed.

"You are assisting me in finding a vehicle," the terminator replied simply. "We must leave this place before the authorities find us."

"What's wrong with the cop car? Why can't we take that?"

"It would be too obvious on the open road. We need a vehicle that will not cause suspicion to the public."

_Good point._

The two were now standing in front of the repair shop, both of them simultaneously looking for a functioning car and shielding their eyes from the rising sun. Briefly, John looked at his watch – 5:40 a.m. At first, John's brow furrowed in confusion; it had been 4:37 last time he checked. He didn't get how an hour and ten minutes could go by so fast, until he remembered that he'd talked with Nik for around ten minutes, and sat around in the back of the cruiser just trying to keep his head straight for an hour.

_Holy shit, I've been doing squat for an hour? Damn. Sure didn't feel like it._

"John!"

John looked behind him, and saw the terminator standing beside a slightly rusty station wagon. With a light smirk on his face, he jogged over to the passenger side of the car.

"Nicely done. Are the doors unlocked?" John tugged on the door, but it wouldn't budge. He scowled. "Shit. They're probably all locked."

"I can fix that," the terminator piped up. He then punched his left fist through the driver's window. The glass shattered instantly, and sprayed all over the front seat.

John winced. "That's not exactly what I'd call 'fixing it,' homes."

The terminator shrugged, sat down in the driver's seat, then reached across and unlocked the door for John. As soon as John was sitting in the passenger seat, the terminator ripped away part of the steering wheel column, and hotwired the car - in all of three seconds. John shook his head in disapproval.

_Next time, he oughta' look for the keys first._

John reached over the terminator's head, put down the visor, and caught the keys as they fell off. He jingled them in front of the terminator's face. "Are we learning yet?"

The terminator sighed, then backed the car up with no regard for John's pissed-off demands to stop the car so he could at least get the door shut. He then pulled the car around to the front of the repair shop, and halted to a stop in front of Sarah and Nik, who were squinting their eyes and trying to shield them from the bright morning sun.

"We have to get as far away from the city as possible."

Sarah nodded, slipped on a worn jean jacket, and opened the back door. "Just head south." She motioned Nik towards her. "C'mon Nik, get in."

With a low, tired groan, Nik trudged over to the station wagon, and slid in as she shut the door. As soon as the back door had been closed, the terminator hit the gas, and they took off down the lonely highway towards southern California.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

We'd been on the road for almost four hours when the saguaro cactuses started popping up alongside the highway, a sign that we were now in the south end of California. At the time, I'd been staring out the window, listening to Pink Floyd playing quietly in the background, and absent-mindedly twirling my swiss army knife in my hand. I'd been silent the entire time we were on the road. Hell, everyone was silent while were on the road, even Sarah (that one was a little hard for me to believe for a while). Nobody really had anything to say.

All of a sudden, a horn drowned out the soft sound of the radio. I jumped in my seat, and nearly whacked my head on the roof of the car as we zipped by a charter bus - and the pissed-off driver laying on the horn - without a care in the world.

I growled. "Son-of-a-BITCH! Can you cut it out with the kamikaze driving already!" I snapped angrily. "The care-free driving BS is gonna make me mental!"

"I apologize, Nik." The terminator briefly looked over his shoulder at the charter bus, which had now become a small silver dot shrinking in the distance. "The driver was going far too slow."

I snorted. "What speed's too slow for you, forty-five?"

"Fifty-five miles per hour, to be precise."

I shook my head. "And what speed did you originally wanna push?"

John looked over his shoulder at me, a half-smile pulling to the left side of his face. "He was almost going for seventy-five, but he cut it down to sixty-five," he answered for me.

I laughed sarcastically. "Sixty-five. Shoulda' known."

Sarah leaned away from her seat, and gave the terminator a warning look. "Keep it under sixty-five," she ordered him. "We don't wanna be pulled over."

"Affirmative."

"No no no no no. You gotta listen to the way people talk," John said. "You don't say 'affirmative' or some shit like that. You say 'No problemo.' If someone comes off to you with an attitude, you say 'Eat me!' And if you wanna shine 'em on, it's 'Hasta la vista, baby!'"

"Hasta la vista, baby," the terminator parrotted.

I laughed silently. "Oh man, I can't wait to hear what you say next."

John looked at me, grinned, and held up his index finger. "Wait," he mouthed to me before he turned back to the terminator. "All right, yeah...or 'Later, dickwad!' And if someone gets upset, you say 'Chill out!' Or, you could do combinations."

"Chill out, dickwad."

I laughed, and clapped my hands. "All right, yeah! Way to go, big guy!"

John playfully backhanded the terminator on the arm. "That's great! See? You're getting it!"

"No problemo."

I tapped John on the shoulder. When he turned around, I gave him a grin and a thumbs-up. "Nice going, Connor."

"Why thank you, Nik. I do try." John ruffled my hair gently. I quickly retaliated by giving him a noogie.

"Dude! What's with the noogie?"

I snickered evilly. "Aw, I just wanted to give you a noogie for the hell of it," I replied sweetly. I then lunged forward and wrestled with him some more.

Suddenly, Sarah yanked me away from John by the shirt just as I was about to put him in a headlock.

"Hey! What gives!"

Sarah gave me a hard glare. "I've asked you and John to cut it out with the horseplay twice now. If you aren't gonna cut the bullshit and open up your ears to other people, then I'm just gonna start yanking you two apart." She exhaled sharply through her nose. "Learn to pay attention, kid. I have no patience for people that don't listen. Got it?"

I rolled my eyes in annoyance. "YES, I got it. Yeesh..." I settled back in the seat with my arms folded in front of my chest, and stared sullenly out my window.

_Damn killjoy._

"Aw, shit! The engine's getting fried already? Goddammit!"

"What's your damage, John?"

"The engine's getting torched right now," he sighed as he pointed at the red thermometer light on the dashboard. "If we don't pull over someplace and dump some coolant into the engine soon... well, it'll be adios to the wagon and hello to hitchhiking."

I nodded in understanding. "All right, I'll keep my eyes open for a rest area or something like that, 'kay?"

"Sounds good."

So, I did just that. Within two minutes, I'd hit the jackpot with the gas station on the left side of the highway.

"Pull over there!" I ordered to the terminator as I pointed to the gas station. "Pull over there right now!"

The terminator spun the steering wheel, and pulled the station wagon into the rest area. As we cut across the highway, we just narrowly avoided getting totaled by a semi coming up the other direction. While the driver responded by laying on the horn, I responded by giving him the finger, sticking my head out my window, and loudly calling him an asshole as he passed us.

I shook my head, and huffed as we wheezed to a stop in front of a gas pump. "Jesus Christ, it's like these people have never heard of stomping their damn foot on the brakes before. What the hell?"

"Nik, people don't usually hit the brakes on a highway. They're too damn busy trying to get from Point A to Point B." John shoved his door open to let in some fresh air, then proceeded to check out the stuff surrounding the gas station. Almost immediately, his green eyes fell on the dusty little diner parked to the left of the station. I could faintly hear his stomach growl hungrily from the backseat. "Man, I'm starving." He turned around to look at me. "How 'bout you, Nik?"

I nodded vigorously. "I'm frickin' dying right now."

"'Kay then, you wanna come with me and grab something to eat?"

"You're the bomb, Connor. Yeah, definitely," I smiled.

Sarah's face scrunched up in confusion. "Do you have any cash?"

With a smug grin on his face, John pulled the remaining wad of twenty dollar bills from yesterday out from his pocket, and waved it in front of his mom's face. "I got a couple hundred bucks. I'll give you half," he said slyly.

In response, Sarah snatched the money out of John's hand, took most of it, and gave the remaining three bills back to him.

"Mom!" he protested.

"Get some food."

Then, she got out of the car, and walked off to the mechanic's garage to the right of the gas station.

Once Sarah was gone, I snorted. "Your mom's so damn serious," I said to John. "I think I'm gonna start calling your mom Chuckles if she doesn't lighten up soon."

"I know." He sighed in irritation, and smacked his thigh with the palm of his hand. "Eesh, she has no sense of humor."

"Yeah, unfortunately," I mumbled as I slid out of the back, and stood outside in the bright morning sun with the terminator.

Once John was out of the car, the three of us walked over to the diner. About halfway there, I looked up at the terminator, and frowned slightly.

"Missster Happy, lose the frown already, will ya?"

"Yeah, that's another thing. You can lighten up a bit yourself. The severe routine's getting old. I mean, you're acting like such a geek. Smile once in a while."

"Smile?"

"Yeah, you know, _smile._Watch."

John ran over to a window, and skidded to a stop in front of a lady with this cranky I-don't-wanna-be-here frown on her face. He rested his chin in his hands, and casually said, "Hi. Nice place you got here. How's business?"

The waitress lady rolled her eyes at John's attempt to be charming and get a grin out of her. "Gimme a break," she grumbled before turning away.

John bit his lip. "Okay, bad example." He briefly scanned the gas station for somebody with a good example of a smile, and focused in on a guy talking on a pay phone. Apparently, whoever the guy was chatting with had said something funny, because he was laughing and smiling. Only problem was, the smile this guy was flashing looked downright CREEPY.

"_Him?_" I mouthed to John in disbelief.

He nodded. "Trust me," he mouthed back to me before turning to the terminator. "You see that guy over there? That's a smile."

_Yeah, a pretty damn demented smile, if you ask me._

The terminator glanced at the guy; for a moment, there was a low whirring sound coming from him. Then, there was something that sounded a lot like John wincing. Curious, I looked at the terminator to see what the deal was.

He was staring at John - with a smile on his face. It was a pretty freaky-looking one, but it was a smile nonetheless. I gave the terminator a thumbs-up and a subtle smirk.

On the other hand, John shivered a little. "That's... good," he said with difficulty. "Maybe you could practice in front of a mirror or something."

The terminator dropped the smile off his face immediately following John's suggestion, and shrugged indifferently. "Perhaps," he said flatly. "Come, you and Nik must eat something."

"We know. We'll take care of ourselves. In the meantime, you're more than welcome to take a break from all the guardian bullshit, 'kay?"

The terminator cocked his head to one side in confusion. "What can I do?"

"I dunno, anything, I guess." I paused for a moment. "Actually, it would really help if you put some of that coolant crap in the car."

"Okay. If you will excuse me then..." The terminator turned around, and walked away from me and John without another word.

As soon as he was gone, John and I looked at each other, and burst out laughing.

"Holy SHIT, that was great!" I giggled. "That just totally made my day!"

"I know! That was just perfect!"

We laughed for about another minute, then we decided to grab something to eat. While I scanned the menu tacked next to a window for something good to eat, John got himself a cheeseburger and some fries. Finally, I said, "To hell with the menu," and got the same as John.

John got another burger and fries, and passed them to me. "Took you long enough," he snickered as he slapped a twenty on the counter. "I only waited for five minutes, ya know."

"Ah, shut up." I lightly smacked John's arm.

He made a face. "Hey, I'm just messin' with you."

"Sure you are."

"I am, honest," John insisted as he gave me this puppy dog look.

The weirdest thing happened as soon as he gave me that look; chills ran up and down my spine as he looked at me. These chills, however, weren't the kind I got when I was afraid; they were more like the kind a girl got when (now I'm not usually like this, just to clarify) she came across a picture of River Phoenix. And BOY, was I getting those chills just looking at John. I didn't know what the hell was going on; his angular, stringy, dirty-blond hair, the look on his face, and the good two or three inches he had over me were making my head all fuzzy.

_What the hell?_

I clenched my eyes shut, and shook my head, hoping that this would get rid of the current _wa-wa_feeling.

I opened my eyes, and looked at John, who had now dropped the puppy dog look and wore a concerned frown.

"You okay, Nik?"

His voice sent another round of chills down my spine. I mentally panicked and swore.

After a second of freaking out, I tried to calm down. _Just act normal, _the little voice in my head instructed. _Just act normal, just act normal..._

I took a deep breath, and nodded. "Sorry," I said. "Kinda' spaced out for a sec."

"It's fine." John started walking back to the station with mine and his food. "C'mon, I'm starving."

I nodded silently, then followed him back to the car, where we sat down in the back.

John passed me the styrofoam box with my burger and fries in it. "Enjoy," he mumbled.

I started at the food for a second, then at John. I smiled lightly. "Thanks for the food, John."

The corners of his eyes crinkled up as he smiled back at me. "You're welcome." He then dove into his burger.

I followed suit with mine. I bit into the bun, meat, and extra trimmings, and tore away a large chunk. Steam billowed out into my face and juice dribbled out of the divot I'd made in the burger. I sighed blissfully at the combined heat of the steam and taste of the meat.

"Wow, you're really into that burger, huh Nik?"

"Bet your ass I am," I grinned after swallowing the food in my mouth. "I haven't had a burger like this one in ages."

Somebody's shadow suddenly loomed over the station wagon. I craned my neck over my shoulder to look behind me, and saw Sarah standing in from of the backseat door, a burger clutched in her hand, and her head tipping to one side in this creepy rag doll way.

_Okay, what the hell?_

"Care to make a little room in there, Nik?" Sarah sighed.

I shoved the last of my burger in my mouth, and scooted over to open the door. Then, I slid to the other end of the bench, and watched in silence as Sarah plunked down in the car, unwrapped her food, and slowly took a bite out of it.

John shook what was left of his fries around in the styrofoam box, not really sure if he was in the mood to eat them or not. He shook his head - no fries for him then, I guess - and held the box out to me.

"No thanks." I rubbed my stomach. "I'll be honest, I'm not that hungry anymore either. I feel like I'm gonna pop if I eat anything else."

He shrugged. "Don't worry, it's cool," he smiled. That quickly gave me goosebumps. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. _C'mon Nik, snap out of it! Quit acting all mushy and get your head outta your ass! WAKE UP!_

"You sure you're okay, Nik?" John asked, lips pursed slightly. "You look... a little out of it."

"Yeah, I'm fine, I swear."

_Yup, REAL convincing, Nik._

John shrugged again, and held his fries out to Sarah. "Want some of my fries?"

Sarah didn't answer - she was too busy watching cars pass by on the highway and absent-mindedly chowing down on her burger. She had this blank, thousand-yard stare in her eyes, and her face was totally expressionless. It was like Sarah was lost in her own world, she was so tuned out of reality.

After a minute of holding out his box of fries, John gave up trying to foist them on somebody else, got out of the car, and went around to the front to see if there was something a bit more interesting for him to do. I, really having nothing better to do, did the same.

I found John leaning against the hood, watching the terminator fill up the engine with fresh coolant. "You need any help?"

"No."

All of a sudden, two little boys with toy guns whizzed past me and John, pointing them at each other as they dueled in a play fight. He seemed super-focused on them, especially when they argued over who killed the other first and shoved each other. From where I was standing, I noticed a trace of sadness in John's eyes; these two kids had no idea how precious life was at the moment. It really was a sad, pitiful thing to watch.

"We're not gonna make it, are we?" he said, voicing the question that had been on our minds for a while now as he stared at the kids. "People, I mean."

The terminator looked at John grimly. "It is in your nature to destroy yourselves."

"Yeah... Major drag, huh?"

I nodded in agreement, and stared out at the horizon. "The human race really sucks sometimes, doesn't it?"

"You don't even know the half of it, Nik. Just wait 'till the war comes. You'll get a REAL GOOD taste of how badly this race sucks," Sarah muttered to me as she got out of the station wagon.

"If I even make it to the war."

"You will, Nik," the terminator insisted. "Your future is inevitable."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"Ask later," Sarah answered for the terminator before he could even open his mouth. "I'm asking questions now." She turned to the terminator. "I need to know how Skynet gets built. Who's responsible?"

"The mainmost director responsible is Miles Bennett Dyson."

"Who's that?"

We all got back into the station wagon as the terminator started talking. "He's the director of special projects at the Cyberdyne Systems Corporation."

"Why him?"

"In a few months, he creates a revolutionary type of microprocessor," the terminator stated, sounding like a history teacher reading from a school book.

"Okay, and?" I said.

Sarah waved her hand impatiently. "Go on. Then what?"

The terminator shrugged as he pulled out of the gas station and back onto the highway. "In three years," he began, "Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they fly at a perfect operational record. The Skynet Funding Bill is passed - the system goes online on August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 AM, eastern time, on August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug."

Sarah's brow furrowed. "Skynet fights back," she softly said in reply.

"Yes. It launches its missiles against the targets in Russia."

I shook my head. "WHOA, back up. Why the hell would Skynet nuke Russia?"

"Yeah, why attack Russia?" John asked. "Aren't they our friends now?"

"Because Skynet knows that the Russian counterattack will eliminate its enemies over here."

"Jesus," Sarah hissed. She threw her head back against her seat, and huffed. Then, her eyes flew open, and she glanced at the terminator with a hard look. "How much do you know about Dyson?"

The terminator looked at Sarah with a steely glint in his eyes. "I have detailed files."

Sarah nodded. "I wanna know everything. What he looks like, where he lives - everything."

_That can't be good._

As I listened to the terminator spill everything he knew about the Dyson guy, my gut kept spazzing and telling me that something was wrong with Sarah's sudden curiosity. The woman was definitely up to something; I just didn't know what, though. I sure as hell hoped that she wasn't thinking about kidnapping him and holding him hostage.

I sighed quietly, and scooted closer to John. "I've got a bad feeling about this," I said in a voice low enough for only John to hear.

"Me too, Nik, me too." He put an arm around my shoulders, and yawned. "Jesus, I'm so damn tired."

"So take a nap then."

John yawned again. "That would really be good." He closed his eyes, and groaned softly. "Finally, decent shuteye."

Within the next minute or so, John's chest was rising and falling gently as he slipped into an almost unconscious state of sleep.

_Jesus, he wasn't kidding when he said he was tired._

I'll be honest, I felt pretty wiped, too; up until I woke up from the nightmare early this morning, the sleep I'd been getting was pretty shitty. Not only that, but I'd been up since four in the morning. At the moment, sleep would've sent me straight to heaven without a second thought.

_You've got time. Get a little rest._

I yawned, and closed my eyes, leaning on John as I did; the moment I did, John's arm moved from my shoulders to my stomach, and pulled me closer to him.

_Always here for me._

As exhaustion fell over me, I fell asleep, smiling faintly to myself.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**FINISHED! ENJOY GUYS, AND STAY TUNED FOR CHAPTER EIGHT! :D**


	8. The Hots

**Author's Note: **Woo! Chapter eight is HERE! ENJOY! :D

**Disclaimer: **I own a necklace with an elephant pendant hanging on it. YAY! X]

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

It was close to five when John woke up in the car. He rubbed his eyes sleepily, and squinted as sunlight smacked into his face.

Slightly dazed and confused, he looked out the windows to get an idea of where he was. His initial thought was that he and everybody else was in the deep south of California - until he heard his mom mention the name Salceda. He sighed to himself as he realized that they were just past the Mexican border, and only minutes away from the "campgrounds" of Sarah's old friend, Enrique.

John groaned as he arched his back and loosened up a little. "Already running to big Enrique, are we mom?"

Sarah stretched her neck, and glanced at John through the rearview mirror. "He has what I need, and a lot of it." She quickly made the terminator turn slowly onto a dusty dirt road that had been carved between a long row of cactuses and scruffy bushes before retuning to her conversation with John. "That's all there is to it, and you know that John."

_Still pretty damn straight-faced. _

He sighed. "Yeah, okay. Whatever." He yawned, and shook his head to wake up a bit more than he had already. He then noticed Nik, totally lights-out asleep with her head lolling back. He snickered under his breath at the sight of her. _Why am I not surprised? _

"What's so funny?"

John shot a pointed look at his mom. "Why do you care?"

"Don't get smart with me, John." Sarah looked at him irritably. She then saw Nik, deep in sleep and slowly tilting towards her son. Her eyes narrowed. "Straighten her up. She doesn't need to be using your shoulder like a pillow."

"What the hell's your problem? Nik's fine, mom," he protested in a low voice, so as not to wake Nik up.

"I don't _care_. Either you get that one to straighten up or you wake her up, got it? I'm not about to have her lying all over you and taking your focus off of staying alive."

Something all of a sudden snapped in John; he didn't know _what _the hell it was, but _it _outright snarled at the bitch his mom had turned into. Nik didn't deserve this bullshit. She'd done nothing bad, and yet here was his mother, talking about her like she was some backstabbing, lying skank. His green eyes angrily burned holes into Sarah's back. "Her name's _Nik_, mom," he said, his voice, low, icy, and dangerous. "And leave her alone. She's done nothing wrong."

"Why do you care about her so much?" Sarah asked suddenly. "Why are you so protective of her?"

The question caught John completely off-guard, so off-guard, in fact, that he wasn't sure that he heard his mom right. _Why did he care about her so much? Why was he so protective of her?_

"Huh...you're shittin' me, mom."

"I'm not shitting you. Why do you defend that twig of a girl? What's so fucking special about her?"

John had several reasons why he thought Nik was 'so fucking special' to him; for one, she was his best friend - always there for him when he needed her, and she was apparently the only other person that seemed to understand how goddamn stressful his life was at the moment.

_She's pretty...has an awesome personality...gives me goosebumps just from looking at her - _

John stopped his train of thought right there. What the hell was he thinking? One second, he was simply sticking up for his friend, and the next, he was getting lost in his thoughts and listing all the stuff that he liked about her. He could feel the flush creeping up the back of his neck to his face, he was so embarrassed. Sarah noticed, and she raised an eyebrow.

"I-I-she-she-she's my best friend, mom," John stuttered, his head practically turning somersaults as it tried to piece together a reasonable explanation for why he cared about Nik so much. "She's the only girl I know that understands me...I mean, me and my deal in the future." He suddenly recalled the terminator mentioning an 'inevitable future' to Nik, something about her being a resistance officer...yeah, that was it! Just for good measure - and to get his mom off his case - he decided to throw that little detail in. "Plus, Nik's important enough to have another terminator trying to kill her, too. If she's dead, then we're as screwed as we are if I'm dead."

Sarah gave a John a look that told him she knew that there was more to his answer, but he wasn't about to put it out and leave it open to criticism. Thankfully, she focused her attention back on the scenery in front of her, leaving John alone with a still-sleeping Nik.

John shook his head. He didn't know where the hell the thoughts about Nik came from. It honestly didn't feel right to have those thoughts about the girl next to him.

Yet, at the same time, it did.

Just to see what would happen if he did, John glanced over at Nik; the moment he did, goosebumps prickled up and down his arms, and butterflies started going nuts in his stomach. He quickly began to note all the positive things about her - her quirky, interesting personality that was practically identical to his; her bravery; the way she looked at him sometimes; her looks...

Again, John stopped his train of thought. What the hell was happening to him? Why did he suddenly feel so..._weird_...around Nik? This had never happened to him with anybody else before, much less a girl.

_Dammit, what the hell's wrong with me?_

He briefly pinched the bridge of his nose, and shook his head. _This honestly isn't happening to me._

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

"Nik. Nik, c'mon. Wake up."

I opened my eyes, and squinted as bright light flooded around me. I groaned, knowing I must've been asleep for a good few hours if I was _this _sensitive to sunlight.

I looked at John sitting next to me. "How long was I out?" I asked, my voice thick with sleep.

"Six hours...something like that, I think." He smirked a little. "I'll be honest, you kinda' look like a zombie right now."

"Oh, shut up, John," I grumbled. Although I was still a little bleary-eyed, I was now awake enough to look around and not feel like my peepers were being singed by the sun. So, I glanced out my window, curious to see where I was.

Sand, bushes, cactuses, and a fence with a rattlesnake head garland hanging on it - that's all I saw. To say that this all weirded me out would've been one hell of an understatement.

"John, where the fuck are we?"

"Salceda Territory," John replied as he stared out the blah, desert-like landscape. "Few minutes into Mexico, if you wanna be more specific." His gaze flickered over to his mom briefly before flickering back to me. "My mom's got a friend that lives around here."

"Friend with benefits?"

"Sorta'."

A cluster of motor homes suddenly popped up on the left. Sarah saw them, and quickly ordered the terminator to pull into the middle of the ring the motor homes formed. As the car braked to a stop, I noticed a partially-dismantled huey helicopter sitting off to the right, and a huge old satellite dish off to the left. I also noticed that me, John, Sarah, and the terminator were the only people outside. It was a little freaky, almost like the place had been abandoned.

_Huh, and that's not weird at all._

"Wait in the car," Sarah ordered us before getting out of the passenger seat. Me, I was more than happy to stay in the wagon - this place was kinda' giving me the creeps.

Outside, John's mom slowly circled the camp, her right hand positioned above the waistband of her sweats, her eyes warily surveying the place, like she was checking and making sure something wasn't hiding in or behind one of the motor homes. It seemed a little pointless to me, considering that nobody else appeared to be here.

I frowned skeptically at John. "What's she-"

"Ssh." John put a finger to his lips, then pointed out my window. "Wait," he said in very low whisper.

I pursed my lips, not exactly sure _who _or _what _I was waiting for. Nonetheless, I sat in the car, and patiently waited for something to happen.

For some odd reason, Sarah started talking in Spanish. _"Enrique,"_ she called out over the wind, her Spanish damn near flawless. "_Where are you?_"

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, I could just barely make out a sound coming from behind the huey - the sound of somebody pumping a shotgun. So, somebody _was _here. The place really wasn't abandoned.

All of a sudden, said person with the shotgun jumped out from his hiding spot, and aimed it at Sarah. In response, she wheeled around, whipped out a pistol, and pointed it at the guy, her eyes holding a sheen that dared him to shoot her. Just for good measure, the terminator got out, and aimed his gun at the guy.

Seeing that he was outnumbered, the man lowered his shotgun, and walked around the huey to the front.

He chuckled. "You're pretty jumpy, Connor."

The remark made Sarah smirk in amusement. She held her hand up to the terminator, a silent way of telling him that it was alright to relax. "_And you?_" As she holstered her pistol, Sarah muttered something under her breath, no doubt something bordering on snarky, and hugged the man.

_So this is Enrique. Interesting way to say hi to a friend. _

I felt John tap me on the shoulder. "See what happens when you wait?"

I snorted. "Yeah, wait long enough, and you'll get to see your mom crack a smile, _for once_."

"You're hilarious, Paulsen." John shoved his door open, and stepped outside. "C'mon."

I shrugged, rolled out of the car, and stood next to John, squinting and shielding my eyes from the sun's bright light. After about five seconds of standing around and feeling out-of-place, we were finally noticed by Enrique. He looked at John, and grinned at him. "Hey, big John," he greeted him heartily. "_How are you?_"

Rather than answering in Spanish, John responded with a casual "What's up?"

Enrique glanced at the terminator, and frowned. "_Who's your big friend?_"

"He's cool Enrique, he's with me. He's, uh...Uncle Bob."

I raised an eyebrow at that, and sent John an unconvinced look.

"Don't say anything," he mouthed hastily before he turned to the terminator. "Uncle Bob, this is Enrique."

"Uncle Bob, huh?" Enrique laughed to himself. "Okaay...okay." He then noticed me standing awkwardly next to John, and pointed a grease-blackened finger at me. "How 'bout your lady friend?"

I blushed when he called me 'lady friend'. Of course, John made me blush harder when he put an arm around my shoulders, and pulled me a little closer to him. "This is my friend, Nik. Nik, Enrique."

I twiddled my fingers at Enrique. "Hi," I said in as strong of a voice as I could muster up, which ended up sounding really fucking weak and pathetic. I mentally huffed in aggravation. _Real smooth talkin' you got there, Nik. _"Real nice to meet you."

Thankfully, the attention was taken off of me when a woman - no doubt the wife - passed Enrique an unopened bottle of Cuervo tequila, then engulfed John in a hug and some Spanish talk. I'll tell you what, having everybody occupied with somebody else was intensely relieving to me; not having the spotlight on me meant that I didn't have to worry about making an ass out of myself.

The lack of 'spotlight', however, hadn't even lasted for ten seconds before I was being 'oohed' and 'aahed' at by Enrique's wife. "_Una muchacha tan bonita!_" she sang in a chipper Spanish accent. "_Eres un chico muy afortunado, Juanito!_" The woman then proceeded to pinch my cheek and kiss me on the forehead.

After she'd moved on to see what else was going on, I looked over at John, who was smiling at me sheepishly, his entire face an embarrassed shade of cherry-tomato red. I chewed on my bottom lip, my head spinning a little from all that Spanish I'd just digested. "You understood what she said to me, right?"

John nodded. "Yeah, I did...it wasn't good."

I half-frowned. "Do I wanna know?"

"Not really," he coughed. "Trust me, you'll be as horrified as me if I spill." His face turned a deeper shade of red, and he turned away so I wouldn't see. "Shit...you've gotta be kidding me with this..."

_Hmm...he looks kinda' cute when he's embarrassed. _A split-second after that thought went through my head, my face blanched. _Oh shit, did that just happen? Oh my god, it did. _

I mentally smacked myself. What the hell was I doing, thinking about John like that? Jesus, for a moment, I sounded like...like I had a _crush _on John.

_Oh god, what if I do? _

Just to see what would happen if I did, I looked at John briefly. The moment I did, I spazzed out, BADLY; my stomach started somersaulting and backflipping crazily, and I had the sudden urge to be closer to him than I was already. My heart was racing, and my skin was tingling with this weird excitement. Christ, the freak-out I had at the gas station earlier today was NOTHING compared to the one I was having right now.

I forced myself to look away from John. I had to; if I'd gone on staring at him any longer there was a good chance I might've done something really fucking stupid that I would regret for years to come.

It wasn't enough, though. I still felt odd with John standing near me, even when I tried my best to ignore him. Now ashamed that I couldn't keep my feelings in check, I moved away from him, and sat down at a picnic bench for as long as necessary until I could get my emotions under control again.

_Jesus fucking Christ, what's happening to me?_

I held my head in my hands, and stared at the ground. Something was wrong with me; I was sure of it. I wasn't supposed to be weirding out like I did when I looked at John, and I sure as hell wasn't supposed to be feeling so lightheaded just thinking about him. At first, it just didn't make any sense to me whatsoever.

Then, it hit me. The realization slammed into me head-first like a freight train.

I had the hots for my best friend. There was no denying it - I'd fallen for John Connor, future leader of the human resistance, and I'd fallen for him HARD.

Life for me had just become EXTREMELY complicated.

_Great. I'm really fucked now._

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

After he'd made sure that the redness in his face had disappeared, John went over to his mom and asked if there was anything that he could do to help out. Almost immediately, she nodded, and pointed to a sand-covered sheet of steel behind the huey. "Get Nik and...our other friend," she ordered him, the last few words coming out slowly as she chose her words carefully, so as not to give away to Enrique and Yolanda's family that the other male with them was a robot. "You three are on weapons detail. Got it?"

John gave his mom a thumbs up, although she paid no attention to it. He shook his head subtly, then grabbed the terminator and Nik, whom he found sitting at a picnic table and staring blankly at the dirt under her feet. His eyebrows furrowed in concern as he crouched beside her, and gingerly placed a hand on her back.

Nik's head snapped over in his direction, and she stiffened a little, which he found a little strange. "Hey John." She smiled at him, but John was quick to notice that there was a trace of nervousness in her eyes when she looked at him.

_Huh. Is she scared of me or something?_

"Hey, you okay, Nik? You're looking at me like I'm gonna shoot you."

"Oh no, I'm fine. I'm just fine, I swear," she insisted. "What's up?"

John was suspicious now; something was up, and he was really tempted to ask Nik and find out what the hell was going on. But, he decided that the questioning could wait, and instead offered her his hand. "C'mon, my mom wants us to stock up on weapons right now."

"Sounds good," she said as she took his hand and stood up. "Lead on, Connor."

He led Nik to the large steel sheet, which the terminator had now moved to the side, and started to scale down the ladder and into the weapons cache. "Climb down - you're gonna _love _this."

Nik obliged, and silently climbed down the ladder. When she was close enough to the bottom, she jumped off the ladder, and landed on the floor of the cache in a squatting position. Nik then proceeded to gawk in sheer, unadulterated awe at the long shelves and racks of weapons that Enrique had gathered up over the years.

"Holy _SHIT_," she gaped. "Look at 'em all."

John supressed a bubble of laughter. "One thing about my mom..." He pulled a dusty sheet away from left wall, exposing a various assortment of assault rifles. "She always plans ahead."

"Yeah, I'll say." Nik walked down the middle of the cache, blue eyes wide in amazement. "I see what you mean when you say Enrique's sort of a friend with benefits. I mean, SHIT..."

Out of the corner of his eye, John watched as the terminator picked up a thumper, and carefully examined it. When he'd finished, he nodded to himself. "Excellent," he said quietly.

Nik chuckled when she saw the terminator holding the thumper. "You never cease to amaze me." She shot a grin at John, which instantly sent chills running up and down his spine. "You never cease to amaze me either, John."

John could only imagine what she meant in those words.

"You and your mom ever help Enrique get all of these?" Nik asked curiously as she took a dusty Colt pistol off a shelf and carefully palmed it in her hands.

"Why?"

She shrugged. "Just wondering, that's all."

John nodded, then grabbed an AK-47 for a quick once-over. "Yep, we sure did. Me, my mom and Enrique nabbed most of this shit when we were living in Guatemala."

"You used to go on weapon raids?"

"Yep...it was just the way I lived...always on the run, grabbing guns, and stashing 'em for later use. Seemed normal to me at the time." A look of nostalgia appeared on John's face as he slipped into the memories of his early years. "You see, I grew up in places like this, so I just thought that's how people lived." He took another AK-47, and examined it closely. "Riding around in helicopters, learning how to blow shit up..." He passed the gun off to the terminator before continuing. "But then when my mom got busted, I got put into regular school. All the other kids were into _Nintendo_," he said distastefully, the word 'Nintendo' rolling off his tongue in a sour, mocking tone.

Nik grumbled in agreement. "Bunch of brainless fatasses, if you ask me."

"You know Nik, if I'm right, _you _used to be into Nintendo," John smirked.

"Yeah, then you and Tim got me into dirtbiking," she shot back playfully.

Heavy silence hung over Nik and John in the cache after the former mentioned Tim sitting back at home in Receda. Neither of them had really thought about the friends and social lives they once had after encountering the T-1000; the thoughts of them now only reminded the two teens of the things that would cease to exist in the future. To John, the idea of losing everything and everyone he'd come to love to Judgment Day and the war scared him, made his soul twist and writhe with fear. Everything he once knew, _gone..._

_Wake up, stupid! _John scolded himself. _This isn't the time to fucking be scared! Grow some balls and be a goddamn man!_

He sucked in a breath of air, and willed himself to let go of his fear, purging the raw emotion and memories of his old life like a computer dumping unnecessary files. _I've become a damn robot...can't show any goddamn emotion._

Out of the corner of his eye, John saw the terminator place a large box off to the right of the ladder. He was always acting so emotionless...did he even have any emotions? Could he ever feel anything?

_Could a machine ever feel fear?_

He posed the question on his mind to the terminator. "Are you ever afraid?" he asked him quietly.

"No."

Cocking his head to the left ever so slightly, John turned to look at him. "Not even of dying?"

"No."

"You don't feel _any _emotion about it one way or another?" he pressed, somewhat bewildered at the lack of human characteristics programmed into his and Nik's guardian.

"No, I have to stay functional until my mission is complete," the terminator responded. "And it doesn't matter."

Nik sighed. "I guess...the only things that matter to us are surviving and not losing our shit in the process."

"Yeah," John agreed. "We have to stay functional, too. _We're too important_," both he and Nik said together in the same sing-song voice.

Following that, John and Nik looked at each other, and laughed at their weirdly-perfect timing. "Well, how's that for awesome?" Nik grinned as she high-fived John. "Most fucking excellent!"

"And it just got better. Get a look at this." He pointed to the terminator, now holding a Gatling gun in his hands. He half-smiled at John, almost like he was begging him to let him use it later.

John nodded and chuckled. "It's definitely you."

The terminator bowed his head, then started ferrying boxes up the ladder. While he employed Nik to help him with the boxes, he asked John if he could check a couple more weapons, just to be safe, so to speak. John merely shrugged, then took an MP5 in his hands for inspection. It proved to be okay, so he set it off to the side. As he did so, he watched as Nik popped in and out of the cache with a box or two in her hands.

He found her so interesting to watch. The way she moved, the way her face would change just so and totally change her attitude...he loved it. Every single aspect of it.

_Okay, WHOA! Nix that train of thought right fucking now!_

But, even when he did, John still found himself drifting back to watching and thinking about Nik. He couldn't help it; it was like she had her hooks deep in his heart, and it looked like they had zero intention of letting go anytime soon. And oddly enough - he didn't mind. In fact, he actually didn't know what he would do if he stopped thinking about her, stopped being close to her. For a moment, his head spun with confusion as he tried to decipher what it all meant.

Then, it all suddenly clicked into place.

He had the hots for his best friend, and he had them _BAD. _

And now, John Connor couldn't help but wonder if his falling for Nik Paulsen had just totally made things A LOT more complicated.

_Well, I'm totally fucked now. _

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**WOO-HOO! CHAPTER 8'S UP! ENJOY GUYS! AND REMEMBER, R&R! :D**

**Oh, and for the record, Yolanda tells John, "Such a lovely girl! You are a very lucky boy, Johnny!" :)**


	9. Red Flags in the Back of My Head

**Author's Note: **Alrighty guys! Hope you enjoyed that last chapter! I know I did! Anyway, here's chapter 9. ENJOY!

P.S. – BIG SHOUTOUT TO ALL THOSE PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN READING AND REVIEWING! YOUR FEEDBACK MEANS A LOT TO ME! THANKS A LOT, GUYS! :D

**Disclaimer: **I own…a purple mag-light flashlight. WOO HOO MAG-LIGHTS! XD

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

When all the boxes were above ground and stacked somewhat-neatly by a picnic table, Sarah informed me, John and the terminator that the pickup Enrique was lending her was in sore need of repair. So, we put a tarp underneath the truck, grabbed a toolbox, laid on our backs, and got to work without Sarah even speaking to us. Really, she didn't need to say anything - her stating that the car was partially fucked up was enough of an order to us.

For a while, all we really did was just poke and feel around at the underside to find out what the hell was going on with the pickup. At first, the only thing we got out of that was grease and other crap up to our fucking elbows (I'll just say, that's probably the dirtiest I've ever been); but then the terminator found something weird going on with the water pump, and that was the end of the blind-pawing.

"Well, thank god that's over," I said as I wiped the grease off my arms with a towel. "Was wondering when that was gonna end."

John frowned. "Why? Were you getting pissed off that we were taking so long to find the bum part?"

I shook my head as a smirk played across my face. "Nah, I was getting sick of having my arms all caked in grease and shit."

"Ha, you _obviously _aren't cut out to be a mechanic," John snorted playfully.

I stuck my tongue out at him, and smacked him on the arm lightly. "Oh what, and you are?"

"_Big time_." John caught a rusty bolt in his hand as it fell out from the bottom, and tossed it off to the side. "I know enough about cars to be a decent mechanic. Hell, if this war against the machines wasn't supposed to happen, I could probably make a living fixing cars."

"Probably." I blinked thoughtfully for a moment, then started chewing on my bottom lip. "Where the hell did you even learn about patching up cars?"

John shrugged. "Believe it or not, one of my mom's boyfriends was a mechanic. I honestly didn't buy it 'til he asked me to help him fix his old Mustang." He sighed, and briefly tapped his chin, thinking of other things he could tell me. "Yeah, most of the guys my mom hung around with were geeks, but there was this _one _guy - he was kinda' cool. He taught me engines."

"What happened to him?"

"Mom screwed it up, of course," he frowned. "She'd always tell him about Judgment Day and me being this world leader, and that would be all she wrote."

I snorted. "That's not surprising."

"Yep...typical mom..." As he passed a torque wrench to the terminator, a wistful look welled up on John's face.

"I wish I coulda' met my real dad."

"You will," the terminator said to him in a low voice.

"Yeah, I guess...when I'm, like, forty-eight, I think."

I nodded. "Yeah, somewhere around there."

"What I figured," John half-smiled. His face then scrunched up, and his eyebrows furrowed. "Hey Nik, did I ever tell you 'bout my dad?"

"I dunno...no, I don't think so." I looked at John curiously. "What's the story with him?"

"Well," he began, "he's actually one of my soldiers during the war - roundabout seventeen, eighteen, something like that. Name's Kyle Reese."

"Your dad was _seventeen _when he got your mom knocked up?" I shook my head, and shuddered slightly. "Sorry, but that's a little...creepy, dontcha think?"

"I guess so." John absent-mindedly began to spin a wrench around his hand like it was my swiss army knife before continuing. "I sent him back in time to 1981. Man, he hasn't even been born yet...ugh, it messes with your head."

"Yeah, I'll say. My head's spinning and my brain's about to explode from trying to make sense of all that," I commented.

"Ha, I've had that feeling for the last couple of years now." John rolled onto his stomach, and looked at his mom, who was currently messing around with a CAR-15 rifle and a bunch of other junk laid out on a picnic table. He sighed. "Mom and him were together for only one night," he said. "She still loves him, I guess. I see her crying sometimes." John paused, then began to chuckle. "She denies it totally, of course, like she got something stuck in her eye."

"That's not surprising, either."

The terminator rolled over onto his right side, and shot John a look of innocent curiosity. "Why do you cry?"

"You mean people?"

"Yes."

John shrugged one shoulder. "I dunno, we just cry...you know, when it hurts."

"Yeah," I agreed quietly, my thoughts rewinding to the dream I had early in the morning, and the memory of sobbing into John's shoulder. "When it hurts."

The terminator simply nodded, and rolled out from under the car with a thoughtful expression on his face. John and I followed suit, and stood up, brushing off the pale dirt that had collected on our sides and backs.

_Gah, I feel so grubby! _

Out of the blue, the terminator asked, "Pain causes it?"

I made a so-so motion with my hand. "Eh, sorta'."

"Uhh...no, it's different," John explained as he continued dusting himself off. "It's when there's nothing wrong with you, but you're hurt anyways. You get it?"

"No." The terminator stuck his arm into the car, and started the ignition. The car grumbled for a few seconds, then finally snarled to life. At that, I threw my fist in the air, and John pumped his arm.

"Alright, my man!"

"No problemo."

"Gimme five!" John then stuck his hand out, and waited for the terminator to smack it with his own.

Thing was though, the terminator looked like he had no idea of what the hell John was doing, or what he was supposed to do. I bit my lip.

"Hey, uh, John? I'm thinkin' it might be a good idea to explain to our buddy the whole high-five thing, 'cause I don't think he's getting it."

John's face reddened a little. "Oops. Yeah, that would be good." He turned back to the terminator. "Just stick your hand out like this" - he held his hand out, palm facing up - "c'mon!"

With a confused frown, the terminator cautiously stuck his hand out. As soon as that happened, John slapped it with his hand, then held it up, palm-side. "Alright, now hit me. Gimme five. Just do the same thing, do the same thing."

I choked down the giggle that had started to build in my throat as I watched John teach the terminator the high-five. If you ask me, watching these two was like watching reverse father-son bonding, and truth be told, it was pretty fucking entertaining to see, probably even more entertaining than watching John berate Tim for no apparent reason. Yeah - _that _good.

Anyway, the terminator stared at John's hand before moving his; he raised it over his head, then brought it down on John's, where their palms met with a loud SMACK!

At first, John was pretty hyped up over that, even going so far as to cheer "Alright!" But, the hype quickly turned into discomfort as the pain in his hand sunk in. "Ah, shit," John cussed under his breath as he shook his hand.

I smirked. "Hey, you asked for it, John."

"Oh, shut up Nik," John shot back jokingly before grinning at me. That grin sent excited chills tearing up and down my spine.

It took a moment for me to get ahold of myself. When I did, I told John to show the terminator Up High and Down Low.

"Ooh, good one!" John immediately raised his hand, and ordered the terminator to hit it on "Up high!" Then, "Down low!"

The terminator went to hit John's hand, but at the very last second, John moved his hand back, and the terminator missed. "Ha ha, too slow!" he grinned evilly.

For that, he got as good of a pissy look as the terminator could conjure up.

"I'm just kidding!" John lightly hit him on the arm. "C'mon, lets try it again."

While they repeated the high-five procedure, I decided to sneak away, sit down, and take a little breather until I was needed for something important. So, that's what I did - I snuck off to the nearest picnic bench, sat down on one end, and just watched what was in front of me. At one point, I found a Beretta 92 sitting behind me on the table, and I had the sudden urge to futz around with it. I quickly grabbed it, made sure the safety was on, then started spinning it around on my finger idly.

For a while, I just sat at the bench, spinning the Beretta around, watching Yolanda play with her two-year old and the other kids run around with their dogs, watching the sunset and observing how it backlit everything in front of me. I breathed contently, enjoying my first real moment of peace since all of this mayhem had even started. Hell, if things weren't the way they were at the moment, this might even be normal.

_Wonder if I'll have moments like these when the war rolls around...if I even get that far..._

I glanced over at John, and smiled softly as I watched him load guns and other crap into the back of the pickup with the terminator.

_Wonder if I'll ever see him again..._

All of a sudden, the sun flared up. I threw my hands up to shield my eyes, and...

_I'm dying, bullets in my back, blood slowly leaking out of me as I lie on red-tinted dirt. John sees me, screams, cries, holds me - but I can't hear or feel him. It's like I'm deaf. I try to reach out to him, touch his shoulder, but it's like he's millions of miles away from me. I die in his arms. _

_Three years pass. I'm somehow alive again, and I'm watching the world burn. Fire, fire everywhere I turn. Everything I see is burning. The whole world is on fire. As I watch, I sob, knowing that Judgment Day has happened. And it's all because of Miles Dyson and his creation - all because somebody didn't stop him when the time was right. _

_Thirty-two years pass. I'm watching John run for his life. Except for the fact that he's taller and a bit more solidly built, he still looks the same. He's forty-eight now. I realize that he and I would be the same age now, if I were still alive. Oh god, he's running so fast. He has a rifle in one hand and an explosives detonator in the other. _

_He's found the brain of Skynet, and has rigged it to blow - on his command. That explains why he's moving so quickly. _

_But, there's a red flag going up in the back of my head. He shouldn't be doing this - I should be doing this. Something feels wrong, VERY WRONG. Why the hell doesn't John have backup? What's happening right now that's causing John to fly solo on this?_

_Then, I see the blood-covered rock John is sprinting towards, see the corpse that has been violated by a gaping knife wound to the chest, see the twisted heap of metal beside the body - and I watch it become a suit-clad T-1000. Horror floods my mind as I put the pieces together. John HAD backup, but his backup's been killed by this exotic murdering machine, this T-1000. _

_And now, it's going to kill John Connor. _

_I scream and yell at John to look out, or run back, SOMETHING, just NOT go to the rock. But he can't hear me - I'm a mute against my own will. Still, I continue to scream at John to stop moving forward, and start moving backward. _

_At this point, he's a yard or two away from the rock - and the T-1000. I'm doing everything in my power to get him to notice me, notice that he's in danger. GODDAMMIT, I NEED TO BE THERE! _

_Suddenly, the T-1000 produces a pistol from within his liquid metal body, and cocks it. He has it aimed directly at John, his index finger poised right before the trigger. He breathes slowly, waiting for John to run by. _

_John veers right, thinking he's returning to his buddy. But, he's instead greeted by the T-1000 - and three shots to the chest. _

_I scream, so loudly that I feel like it could shatter glass to billions of pieces. I scream until my throat's raw and ragged, and watch helplessly as John Connor, the boy I'd fallen in love with, my best friend, falls to the ground, his life escaping his body. The last thing he says before he hits the ground is my name. "Nik," he whispers softly. _

_Then, the lights leave his eyes, and John dies. _

_I break down then, and I sob, howl, shriek in agony - but now, even I can't hear myself. It's like somebody's hit my 'mute' button. I'm now fading away as quickly as humanity is from this life-giving planet. _

_The war's been lost, and it's all because of me - it's all because I die at the hands of the T-1000._

I was dry-heaving and crying in horrified silence when the vision finally ended. I honestly couldn't believe what I'd just seen, what I'd just felt - Judgment Day, and the havoc it wreaked; John's death, and the hope of winning the war that it stole from the resistance; and the annihilation of the human race.

_So much destruction, _I thought. _All because I die, and Miles Dyson lives._

Dyson. HE was responsible. Judgment Day, the war, the lives lost - EVERYTHING, because of him and his creation.

As more tears ran down my face, I looked at John. He was sitting on a table with the terminator, talking with him animatedly. The terminator said something, and John laughed. He looked and sounded so happy, so at ease now. At first, my heart clenched when I thought of how quickly that happiness would disappear from John at the beginning of the war; then, it broke into millions of pieces when I remembered what happened in my vision, and how the life in him left as quickly as his blood left the exit wounds in his back.

_NO. _

I wasn't going to let John die like that. I wasn't going to stand by and simply allow my best friend to bleed to death.

I wasn't going to let Miles Dyson build his motherfucking microprocessor, either, and just let him kill millions of innocent people. I would fucking _DIE _before I let that happen.

I made a choice, then. I would do whatever it took to make sure John lived, and to make sure that the world was spared from the destructive horror of Judgment Day.

_Starting with that murdering fuck Dyson._

Remembering the Beretta in my hand, I shoved the barrel of the gun into my pants, and briskly walked away to find Sarah. In this situation, she was the only person who would understand why I was so intent on killing Miles Dyson. Hell, knowing her, she'd probably want to kill him, too, for the awful things that he does.

I found her loading the CAR-15 rifle and some ammo in the back of the station wagon. I didn't have to ask her what she was doing; I already knew that she was saddling up and getting ready to put Dyson down for good.

I strode over to her. "Sarah," I began. "I-"

"NO," she snapped sharply before I could even finish my sentence. "If you came to stop me, then don't bother. My answer's-"

"Take me with you."

Sarah immediately stopped what she was doing, and gave me a hard glare. "What? No! I'm not taking you with me!" Her lips curled into a disgusted sneer when she noticed the Beretta holstered in my pants. "You can't even shoot a damn gun!"

"Oh yeah?" Without hesitating, I whipped the pistol out of my pants, turned off the safety, aimed the barrel at a small cactus behind Sarah, and blew a hole through one of its arms, unfazed by the loudness and recoil of the shot. I then turned the safety back on, and narrowed my eyes at Sarah.

"Can too, bitch. Now look - I have my reasons for wanting to kill Dyson, too. I can either explain them to you right here, right now, or I can do that in the car. But, either way Sarah, I'm coming with you, and I really don't give a fuck if you like it or not."

For a moment, Sarah simply stared at me, stunned by my boldness. Then, she inhaled sharply through her nose, and exhaled, mild swears mingling with her breath.

She pointed at the wagon. "Get in the car."

I was in the passenger seat before she'd even finished speaking.

Sarah followed suit, and started the car. The sound of it firing up caught John's attention; through the rear-view mirror, I saw his head snap up, and his eyes widen. He made a mad dash for us as Sarah put the car in gear.

"MOM! MOM! MOM, WAIT!"

We didn't bother; Sarah slammed her foot down on the gas, and the station wagon was propelled forward. As we sped away from Enrique's camp, I rolled down my window, and looked back at John. His eyes locked with mine for a brief second; all I could see in them were hurt and confusion, so much hurt and confusion that I had to turn away.

_I have to do this. _

"I'm sorry John," I said to his shrinking reflection in the rear-view mirror, "but this is for your own good."

"That's why you're coming, aren't you...you're doing this for my son."

_Shit, she heard me._

I decided to play dumb. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't play stupid with me, kid. I've seen the way you look at John when he's around. It's obvious you have feelings for my son." Sarah cut the wheel hard, and the station wagon veered to the left as we got on the highway again, only this time we were going in the opposite direction. "It may not be obvious to him, but it's obvious to me, Nik."

I scowled as I stared out my window at the other cars passing by us. "That's partly why I'm taggin' along with you."

"Oh, there's more to it?" Sarah snorted. Sarcastically, she added, "This oughta' be good."

All of a sudden, I wheeled on Sarah with a snarl, and jabbed my finger in her face. "You wanna know why I'm doing this, Sarah? Because if I don't, one - Miles Dyson is gonna nuke the fucking world to hell; two - I'm gonna get shanked to death by the liquid-metal man; and three - John is gonna DIE trying to stop the war and save humanity if I'm not there to fucking save him!"

On that last note, Sarah's eyes widened in horror. "How-how do you know-"

"BECAUSE I SAW HIM DIE! I SAW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF I DIED RIGHT NOW AND MILES FUCKING DYSON LIVED!" I shrieked as enraged tears welled up in my eyes. "IF I'M KILLED, AND JOHN'S KILLED, THE ENTIRE WAR WILL BE LOST AND HUMANITY'S FUCKED AND GONE!" I bent over, and covered my face with my hands, my body shaking from the enormous rush of adrenaline I just had. I shook my head, and drew in a quivering breath of air. "I'm in love with your son, Sarah. I care about him WAY too much to let him go out like that, after all he's gone through. I can't let him die."

Sarah didn't say anything to me; instead, she stared straight ahead at the highway and focused on driving the station wagon. I was thankful for that - I wasn't in the mood to talk anymore.

I straightened up after a few minutes, and watched cars in the far right lane go by from my window with a grim heaviness in my heart.

_If this goes well, _I thought, _John, I hope you have it in you to understand and forgive me._

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**WOOT! So, we now officially know why Nik is so important! COOLNESS! :D Hope you guys enjoy this chappie, and stay posted for chapter 10! R&R! REVIEWS ARE POWER! ;)**


	10. Dyson

**Author's Note: **KYAA! I'VE REACHED MY FIRST MILESTONE CHAPTER IN THIS STORY! :D In celebration of this oh so _gloriously EPIC _moment, you guys all get a big slice of e-cake! :) Thanks for sticking with me, guys! Anyway, here's the very much-anticipated chapter 10!

**Disclaimer: **I own…an anime doodle I did of Cherry Valance from _The Outsiders. _I'll be honest, it looks really freakin' ADORABLE. :)

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

Several minutes had passed since his mom and Nik had left in the station wagon, but to John it felt like mere seconds since that had all happened. He couldn't move, he was so shocked; how could his own mother just abandon him here? How in the world could she do that to him?

How could _Nik _do that to him?

"Why?" he whispered softly.

He heard the terminator come up from behind, and felt his beefy hand on his shoulder. "Are you alright, John?"

John was very tempted to say no and tell the terminator what had just happened; he wanted somebody to talk and listen to him so goddamn badly that the desire for it was overwhelming his common sense and thinking.

He wanted Nik to to talk to him, to listen to him...

_Stop it, _hissed his thoughts. _Stop it, cut the bullshit, John! Moping around and acting like a baby isn't gonna help anyone! You're the leader of the human resistance, not some whining pansy! Get a hold of yourself, dammit!_

"I'm fine," he said stiffly. "C'mon, lets get our gear-"

John suddenly noticed the tip of his mother's bowie knife buried in a crack in the picnic table she'd been sitting at, and he slowly walked over to see it better, curious as to why his mom had left it there. He waved the terminator over slowly. "Hey, c'mere. Check this out."

Upon inspection, he saw words carved into the tabletop, but it was difficult to read with the knife throwing black shadows across them. So, he pulled it out with a gentle twist, and tilted his head to the side to read the words a bit better than he already could.

'NO FATE' was carved into the table. Bells began to ring in John's head as he read the phrase that was unfamiliar to him, yet felt so familiar.

"No fate," he murmered under his breath. "No fate but what we make."

The confusion John felt after reading was slightly unnerving to him. Things didn't make any sense; why did his mom carve that, then decide to take Nik and a CAR-15 off to god-knows-where? What the hell was his mom even _doing _with Nik and a CAR-15?

Absent-mindedly, he said to the terminator, "My father told her this...I mean, I made him memorize it up in the future as a message to her." When he acknowledged that the terminator didn't have the slightest goddamn clue of what he was talking about, he decided to drop that conversation. "Never mind. Now okay, the whole thing goes: the future's not set...there is no fate but what we make for ourselves."

"She intends to change the future."

"Yeah, I guess..."

It took John a second to put two and two together. He now understood why his mom had been so interested in Miles Dyson during the car ride, why she'd been so invested in picking up her stuff - why he'd been left behind as she and Nik headed back in the opposite direction that they came. It all made crystal-clear, really fucking SCARY sense.

This all had to do with Miles Dyson.

"Oh shit!"

The realization dawned on the terminator when he heard the shock in John's voice. "Dyson," he stated flatly.

"Yeah, gotta be...Miles Dyson!" All of a sudden, John saw the image of his black-clad mother with the CAR-15 in her hands flash before his eyes, as well as the image of Nik with an evil-looking Beretta pistol in her pants.

_They've got guns..._

In that instant, horror slammed into him.

_Jesus Christ, THEY'RE GONNA KILL HIM!_

"SHE'S GONNA BLOW HIM AWAY!" John cried, his face paint-primer white and his stomach raging mercilessly. "C'mon, lets go! C'mon, lets go, lets go, c'mon!"

As he and the terminator wildly tossed guns and ammunition into the pickup truck, John couldn't help but spiral into a sickening fear. How had he not seen this coming? He should've been able to see the signs, some sort of indication that his mother wanted to gun down Dyson, something! And Nik... John shook his head. It just didn't make sense; why would she want to kill him? What the hell had happened to his best friend, the girl he was undeniably in love with, all of a sudden?

"Jesus...Nik, how can you do this?" he thought aloud. "What's happened to you?"

John was now so occupied with his thoughts about Nik that he didn't notice that the terminator had called his name twice now. On the third call, John snapped out of his thoughts, and got into the passenger seat of the pickup just as the terminator stepped on the gas.

"You seem to be troubled, John," the terminator said as he cut the steering wheel to the right. "May I ask why you are this way?"

"Look, I'm sorry for zoning out back there, but I've got a LOT of shit on my mind right now." John huffed in aggravation, and squeezed his hands into fists. "I'm so goddamn confused."

He was given a look by the terminator that asked him to continue.

"It's Nik, man. I don't get it - why the hell does she want to kill Dyson so badly?" He punched the seat in frustration. "It doesn't make any goddamn sense! How the fuck could my best friend do this to me!"

The terminator kept silent for most of John's raging, and only spoke when he was silent again. "Nik is only doing this to guarantee your safety, John," he told him statically as he got on the highway and accelerated to sixty.

_So that's why she went with mom...this all has to do with me._

John held his head in his hands. "Jesus H. Christ," he moaned. "Why is she doing _this_?"

The terminator blinked slowly. "It could be that she's seen her alternative future, and has been scared into killing Dyson."

"Whaddaya mean "she's seen her alternative future"?" John glanced at the terminator oddly. "You're telling me what would happen if things went differently?"

"Think of what would happen if Nik were to be terminated by the T-1000."

John's throat went dry. He was barely able to choke out, "If she's dead, t-then I-I-I'm..." He couldn't finish the sentence.

The terminator nodded. "Yes, you are dead if Nik is dead."

_Holy shit...holy, fucking, SHIT. _

"I wanna know everything," John stated stoicly. "What happens if Nik dies in the future, what happens if I die, how I die - EVERYTHING." He had questions, and he wanted the answers to them immediately.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

About an hour later, John had learned damn near everything there was to know about Nik in the future - _if she were to die._ Not only that, but he also learned about her future self, if she were to live. If she made it to the war in one piece, Nik would - believe it or not - become a part of the resistance, move through the ranks to become a major, and end up being John's second-in-command. Then, if _that _happened, she would be the one to end the war with him, once and for all. That last bit of info REALLY surprised John.

_Shit...who woulda' thought?_

He stared out the window at the passing scenery, which had now been blanketed with the darkness of the night sky. He curled his hand into a loose fist, and pressed it to his mouth in anxiety. This was taking too long...he and the terminator should've been at Dyson's house by now. He hoped to god that his mom and Nik hadn't already killed him.

"We gotta move faster. We're running out of time," John said in a low voice.

The terminator breathed in through his nose. "This is tactically dangerous."

"I don't care, drive faster."

"The T-1000 has the same files that I do. It knows what I know, and it might anticipate this move."

"I don't care, we gotta stop her and Nik."

"Killing Dyson might actually prevent the war."

"I don't care!" John snapped. "Haven't you learned anything yet? Haven't you figured out why you can't kill people?"

The only answer John received from the terminator was a half-hearted shrug. It was obvious that he _still _hadn't learned the importance of protecting human life, rather than destroying it.

"Look," he began, "maybe _you _don't care if you live or die, but everybody's not like that. We have feelings; we hurt; we're afraid." John shook his head, and settled back in his seat. "You gotta learn this stuff, I'm not kidding. It's important."

John then remained silent for the rest of the ride, and spent it silently praying that he and the terminator would be able to stop Nik and his mother in time.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

It didn't take us long to get to Dyson's house. It sure as hell didn't take long for us to find it, either - it was the huge white one with the stupid palm trees peppering the front and back yard, plus the gargantuan lit-up swimming pool set behind the house.

Sarah and I abandoned the car in a nearby lot, grabbed our gear, and ran around to the back, keeping our eyes open for Dyson. He actually turned out to be just where we wanted him - sitting alone at his computer in his office, his back turned to us.

_Perfect. _

Me and Sarah took position behind a low hill with a concrete half-wall, and silently readied ourselves for the murder we were about to commit. I shoved a fresh magazine into my pistol, and slowly breathed in and out. I wasn't scared. I had no need to be. This fucker deserved to die.

"You set, Nik?"

I looked over at Sarah as she expertly slapped a mag into her rifle, and nodded curtly. "Yeah, are you?"

She quickly screwed on a silencer, then grasped the gun in her hands tightly. "I am now," she growled, her voice quivering with malice and fury. "This motherfucker'll pay for what he'll do with his worthless life."

_Damn right, he will. _

I switched off the safety on my Beretta, and scooted over to the left a little. Then, I aimed the barrel at the back of Dyson's head just as Sarah pointed a red-dot laser at his back. I poised my finger in front of the trigger, ready to squeeze it at any given second, ready to kill the mass murderer who sat in front of me, totally oblivious to my whereabouts.

_C'mon, you piece-of-shit..._

Sarah breathed in slowly, and just barely tapped the trigger of the rifle, waiting for the right moment to shoot. She blinked, and exhaled. Then, she squeezed the trigger, and a single bullet rocketted out of the gun. I'll admit, the shot Sarah had taken was a very good one.

Too bad Dyson bent down to get something just as she fired.

The bullet passed through the glass, and collided with his computer screen, sending millions of glass shards flying through the air. At that, Dyson snapped up, startled by what had just happened. Sarah then fired another bullet, causing Dyson to dive under and behind the cover of his desk.

"Goddammit," Sarah hissed to herself. She then hoisted the gun up, and held her finger on the trigger, letting loose a steady stream of bullets at the window in an attempt to hit Dyson. Again, she didn't hit Dyson; she instead managed to completely trash his office, and used up all the ammo for the CAR-15. With a growl, she threw the gun away.

"Move NOW!" she barked at me roughly as she whipped out her pistol. "Don't let Dyson get away!"

I wordlessly sprang into action, and vaulted over the half-wall, safety on my Beretta still off and a bullet loaded in the chamber, my soul devoid of any mercy and respect for this cockroach's life. After tonight, the war would cease to exist, and there was nothing that was going to stop me from making sure of that.

"Shoot him first chance you get!"

"With pleasure!" I snarled as I prowled towards Dyson's destroyed office. My heart was racing (with nervousness or excitement or fear...hell if I know), and my thoughts were literally tripping over themselves in an attempt at coherency. _This is it, _I thought. _This is the moment where I prevent the war. This is where I end this miserable fuck's life._

I was able to hear Dyson breathing behind the cover of his desk, even with all the glass snapping and crunching under my feet; his breaths were short and fast, like those of a scared bunny's. I briefly saw him look around the desk, straight at me and Sarah, and I saw his brown eyes bulge when he noticed the gun in my hands. Rage flooded through me at the sight of him.

"You...you _mass-murdering, cold-hearted motherfucking BASTARD!_" I shouted, my voice filled to the brim with anger. "_YOU FUCKING MURDERER!_"

I charged in blind fury at Dyson, and he bolted away from the desk.

"NO!" I cocked my pistol, and started shooting at Dyson. I missed him on the first two shots, but on the third, I managed to drive a slug into his left shoulder. He cried out in pain, and he dropped to the floor for a second, his blood splattering on the white wall and becoming a demented rorschach pattern. But, he then got up, and kept running for cover.

_NO! YOU AREN'T GETTING OUTTA THIS ALIVE, YOU FUCK!_

I sprinted after Dyson, and found him leaning against a wall in what looked like his living room. His face glistened with sweat, and his eyes were wide with terror.

"Please," he panted fearfully. "I don't understand what I've done-"

I shoved him against the wall, and pressed the barrel of my gun to his forehead. "It's not what you've _done,_ you fuck, it's what you _do_! I'M GONNA DIE, MY BEST FRIEND'S GONNA DIE, MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ARE FUCKING GONNA DIE BECAUSE OF YOU! I'M NOT GONNA LET THAT HAPPEN!"

_Do it, do it, do it..._

I'd barely begun to squeeze the trigger, when I saw _them_ - Dyson's wife and son. Their eyes were ready to bulge out of their sockets, and tears were streaming down their faces.

And for a fleeting second, I wasn't looking at the family of Miles Dyson. No - at that exact moment, I seemed to be staring at my mental image of John, and he was wearing the same tear-streaked look of shock and fear on his face.

I totally shut down, then. The hand I was holding the gun with dropped down to my side limply, and my vision became blurry as tears of pure shock formed in my eyes. I was absolutely horrified with myself; I'd almost killed a man in front of his family to save the life of another, and up until that point, I'd had NO bones about it. I'd felt numb - no fear, no disgust, no disbelief, no remorse - NOTHING. It was like I'd been a different person...

It was like I'd turned into a terminator. I'd become the one thing that I feared and hated more than Miles Dyson and his atrocities.

And it showed, right on the man's left shoulder, where a blood-colored rose had blossomed around the bullet wound.

_I did that...I shot Miles Dyson in the shoulder. Oh Jesus, what have I done?_

I shook my head profusely, and backed away from Dyson, whispering "Oh god" like it was an incantation. I couldn't do this. I couldn't, and I wouldn't.

Sarah looked at me, disbelief written across her face. "What the fuck are you doing, Nik?" she yelled. "Kill the bastard!"

"I can't do it! I can't, I can't, I can't do it!" I covered my mouth with my free hand to stifle the whimper that had built in my throat. "Please Sarah, let him be!"

A wild look appeared on her face all of a sudden, and as she stormed into the living room, she shot the walls to let Dyson and his family know that she meant business. She rounded the corner, shoving Dyson to the floor roughly without a second thought. Chaos exploded everywhere then. Dyson's son dived towards his father with a cry of "DADDY!" and the wife frantically tried to pull her little boy off his father.

"NOBODY FUCKING MOVE!" Sarah shouted. She pointed her gun at Dyson's terrified wife. "Get down on the floor, bitch! FUCKING DOWN, NOW!"

"SARAH, STOP IT! THEY'VE DONE NOTHING WRONG!"

"YOU SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH, NIK! YOU'VE FUCKED THIS UP ENOUGH! NOW BACK OFF AND SHUT UP BEFORE I FUCKING MAKE YOU!" Sarah then aimed the gun at the boy, now clinging desperately to his dad as sobs shook him. "Get out of the way!"

"DON'T HURT HIM!"

For the sake of his safety, Dyson pushed the boy off him, and towards his mother. "Just...just let the boy go."

"Shut up! Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT! MOTHERFUCKER, IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!" Sarah was now shaking, she was so enraged. I could see her starting to crumble as she struggled to keep herself from breaking down. Her voice was wobbling and cracking, and her hands were trembling as she aimed the barrel of her pistol at Dyson. "I'm not gonna let you do it!"

Tears were now spilling down my face, and I was shaking hysterically as I watched Sarah prepare to shoot Dyson. Her face hardened - all except for her eyes. They were swimming with fear and pain and so many other emotions that it was hard for me to name them all. Her eyes completely betrayed what she was forcing herself to do. It was then that I knew that the desire to kill Miles Dyson had left her.

She gasped, like she was waking up from a nightmare, and tried to keep herself from bursting into tears. She hushed them, and held up one hand in a 'wait here, don't move' gesture. Then, as tears began to run down her cheeks, she stumbled backwards, until her back hit the wall with a soft _thud_. She then slid down the wall, shuddering and breathing raggedly.

As for me, I couldn't move - it was like my feet were rooted to the floor; the most I could do was squat down where I stood. So, I did that, and I held my head in my hands, shaking and crying silently.

_What the hell have we done?_

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

By the time he and the terminator had pulled up to the Dyson's house, John was having a full-blown panic attack. He'd flown out of the car before the terminator had even taken the key out of the ignition, and had all but sprinted for the front door, praying and hoping that Dyson was still alive. When he saw the partially destroyed living room - and Nik holding her head in a vice-like grip - though, John began to think that maybe Miles Dyson _was _dead.

_Oh god no, they actually did it..._

This was bad, VERY BAD.

"Shit, we're too late!" he cried as he tugged on the door. When it wouldn't budge, he stepped to the side, and allowed the terminator to force it open. When that was taken care of, he rushed inside, straight to his horror-stricken mother. He quickly pointed at the mother and child crowded around Dyson's seemingly-lifeless body. "Check them!" he ordered the terminator before turning back to Sarah.

He pulled off the black cap sitting on his mother's head, then gently put his hands on her shoulders. "Mom, you hurt?" he asked softly. "Look at me."

Tears were welling up in Sarah's eyes. "I almost...I almost..." Her voice trailed off before she could say the dreaded words.

_Oh god..._

Feeling a strong desire to comfort his mother, John wrapped his arms around her trembling frame, and pulled her close to him as sobs wracked her. At first, Sarah remained limp in his embrace; but then, she buried her face into the hollow of his shoulder, and hugged him tightly.

Time seemed to stop for John. For the first time in his life, his mother was hugging him, REALLY hugging him, and he was hugging her back. She was giving and showing him a mother's love, the one thing that John had never really experienced before, the one thing that he'd pined for so desperately since he could remember. Fighting the urge to cry, John squeezed his eyes shut, and clung to his mother.

"It'll be okay. We'll figure something out, okay?" he said softly after gently leaning back to look Sarah in the eye. "I promise."

Choking back her sobs, Sarah nodded. She then drew in a shaky breath, which seemed to rattle her whole body. "You came here to stop me?"

"Yeah...yeah, I did."

Then, John heard his mom say the one thing he'd never expected to come from her.

"I love you, John. I always have."

"I know." As John squeezed his mother, he felt just a hint of peace and relief inside him. His own mother had finally said "I love you" - those magic words that he'd waited so many years for her to say. It was all he'd ever wanted - to hear his mother tell her son that she _did _care.

_I love you too, mom._

John gently pulled away from his mother, and looked over at Nik. His heart clenched at the expression of torture and agony on her face. He couldn't stand to see his best friend looking so pained; seeing her that way made John feel like he was being punched in the stomach repeatedly, torturing him as much as it was torturing her.

He stood up, and cautiously made his way over to Nik. "Hey," he said in a low voice, "you okay?"

At the sound of his voice, Nik's head jerked up. She took one look at John, and then she ran out of the house as fast as she could.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**SHWEET! AT LAST, MY TENTH CHAPTER HAS BEEN POSTED! Really hope you guys enjoy this chappie! R&R, and stay tuned for chapter 11! :D**


	11. Disconnected

**Author's Note: **AW YEAH! CHAPTER 11'S HERE! ENJOY! :D

**Disclaimer: **I own…a book about army symbols and operations. Hooah to that! X)

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

I ran out of Dyson's house as fast as I could. I didn't care if John or someone else decided to follow me – quite frankly, I didn't _want _John or someone else following me, but at the moment, I couldn't give two shits if I was being followed or not. I just flat-out had to get the hell outta that house. I had to get away from the damage I'd done, from the people I'd hurt.

I had to get away from John. Jesus, I couldn't even fathom how badly I'd betrayed him…

The thought of John and what I'd done to him became too much for me to deal with; now by where Sarah and I had attempted to snipe Dyson, I collapsed behind the half-wall, and wigged out. I hated myself, and more than likely, John hated me, too; I'd screwed up so badly, I doubted he'd ever want to be friends with me again.

_Fuck, how could I have been so goddamn stupid?_

In a moment of frustration, I punched the wall, not caring that I made my knuckles bleed by doing that. At this point, it didn't matter; I couldn't give a damn about the pain I was inflicting upon myself. What I did give a damn about was that I'd almost murdered Miles Dyson in cold blood, and that I'd been motivated by my feelings for John and a goddamn dream.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck – _

"Nik!"

My head snapped up at the sound of John's voice, and my eyes widened fearfully when I saw him run towards me. For the briefest moment, I was scared of my best friend, and what he was capable of. The thought of what he could do terrified me to the point where I was literally trembling and spewing different variations of an apology.

"I'm sorry, John!" I choked weakly, trying like hell not to burst into tears. "I'm sorry for everything! I'm so sorry! I'm so-"

I was engulfed in a hug before I'd finished. By then, I couldn't bottle up my emotions anymore; with a sob, I buried my face into John's shoulder, and just broke down.

"I'm so sorry, John! I'm so sorry!"

He wound his arms around me tightly, hushing me in the process. "You have no CLUE how scared I was, Nik. I thought you killed Dyson."

"I almost did! I-I had my finger on the trigger! I-I-I was so close to-to..." I wasn't able to complete that sentence before I started crying again.

"Ssh, it's alright." John gently placed one hand on the back of my head, and pressed his left cheek to my temple. "It's alright."

I shook my head roughly. "No, it's not! I nearly goddamn _murdered _somebody to keep you alive, John! I came so fucking close to doing the absolute _worst _thing I could do!" I rested my head in the crook of John's neck, and allowed tears to run down my face. "I was scared. I was scared to let you die."

He rubbed large, lazy circles on my back soothingly. "I know, Nik. I know," he whispered quietly.

I slowly pulled away from John, and looked into those brilliant green eyes of his through my blurry vision. I blinked, and more tears cascaded down my cheeks. "I can't lose you, John - I can't." I looked away from him. "I love you..."

"What?"

I don't know what the hell happened to me, but at that moment, it suddenly felt like my brain disconnected from the rest of my body; I grabbed John by the shirt, yanked him towards me, and crushed my mouth to his.

That kiss only lasted for a grand total of four seconds, but to me, it seemed to last for hours. I poured every single ounce of emotion into it; all the love I had for John, all the fear, the anger, the anxiety - every last little bit of what I'd felt for the past day now.

After the four seconds had gone by, I pulled away, and looked at John, slightly breathless and dizzy. The surprise was so deep-set in his face you would've thought somebody had carved the look into it before I'd kissed him. I took a deep breath, and looked him in the eyes, forcing myself to be brave and tell him how I felt.

"I love you, John, plain and simple. Truth be told, I dunno what the hell I'd do without you." I felt the burning hot flush erupt all over my face, and I swallowed in discomfort. "That's sorta' why I...did...what I just did."

John was silent for a moment, his face expressionless. I looked down in embarrassment, taking his lack of emotional feedback as evidence that he was officially creeped out by what I'd just confessed to him. I felt like an idiot now - a lovesick, thirteen-year old dumbass who was more concerned with her feelings than her life that was walking on a dangerously thin line.

"That makes two of us," John said suddenly.

My head snapped up so fast I practically gave myself whiplash. I wasn't sure I'd heard John correctly - _that makes two of us? _

"H-Huh?"

John squeezed his eyes shut, and took a deep breath. "I love you, too, and I'm not sure what the hell I'd do without you, either."

For a couple of seconds, I could only blink in shock. I flat-out couldn't believe what I'd just heard - John Connor admitted that he had big feelings for me, REALLY big feelings. I was so surprised, I kinda' began to wonder if I was dreaming this all up. I quickly pinched my arm to see if I was - and I wasn't.

"You really mean it?"

He pulled me into another tight hug, and again pressed his cheek to my temple. "Yeah, I really mean it," he said softly.

I pressed my face into the hollow of John's shoulder, closed my eyes, and smiled blissfully. At the moment, it didn't matter that the T-1000 was still looking for me and John, or that our futures were still at stake. What mattered was that my best friend loved me, and that I loved him.

And at that moment, things seemed a little bit brighter to me.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**Okay, one - I apologize if this chapter was too short (believe me, I wanted to draw this one part out as far as humanly possible, but a case of damn writer's block pretty much bombed that to kingdom come); and two - you've gotta admit that this was really freakin' cute! I most certainly thought it was, but what about you? Anyways, enjoy, and stay posted for chapter 12! :D**


	12. The Changeup

**Author's Note: **Jeez, I'm on a roll with these puppies! Anywho, enjoy! :D

**Disclaimer: **I own… pair of knock-off Ray-Ban aviators I got at a mall in DC. Not like I care that they're knock-offs – they're still aviators! Oh to the yeah! XD

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

After about five minutes of staying outside, John and Nik both headed back into Dyson's house. Truth be told, he would've rather just avoided the house altogether now, but at the moment, there were more important things to worry about, his and Nik's life being the biggest.

The interior of the house hadn't really changed since John had ran after Nik; the only addition to the scene was a zig-zagging line of bloody handprints that had been created by Dyson on the carpet in his attempt to sit up. John's stomach rolled slightly at the sight of the blood - Nik had pegged Dyson pretty damn good, not to say that he thought it was a good thing. He averted his gaze from the blood, and instead focused it on the terminator, who was currently instructing Dyson's wife to press her palm down on her husband's wound.

He walked over to stand beside the terminator, and looked down at Miles and his family.

Miles sucked in a nervous breath of air as he stared back at John and the terminator. "Who _are _you people?"

At that, John turned to Nik, and held one hand out, palm facing up. "Lemme see your swiss army knife for a sec, Nik," he ordered her calmly.

Nik nodded silently, and withdrew the knife from her jeans pocket. She then passed it to John, who briefly closed his hand around hers and the knife before taking it. He then flipped the blade up, and handed it off to the terminator. "Show them," was all he said. It was high time that the Dysons knew the identity and origins of the man in front of them, and this seemed like the only way to tell them.

As the terminator shrugged off his leather jacket, John walked over to Dyson's son, Danny. "Danny, I want you to come with me right now, okay?" he said to the little boy in a gentle voice. "Show me your room." He took Danny by the hand, and led him away from Nik, the terminator and the others as quickly as he could. This was something that he just didn't need to see right now; hell, seeing his own father shot was something that this poor kid didn't need to see. He shook his head, and sighed to himself as Danny pulled him to his bedroom, fear for his father now replaced with an excitement to show off his room and all his toys.

They made it into Danny's bedroom within three seconds, and John closed the door behind him as the worst of the hysteria began. He tried to block out the sound of the wife's whimpering and crying, not wishing to deal with anymore gut-wrenching horror than he had already.

A look of worry welled up on Danny's face. "What's happening to my mommy and daddy?"

John looked at the boy briefly; there was a genuine look of concern and fear etched into his face, the kind of look that came with the desire for an answer. Problem was, John didn't have the foggiest of how the hell he was going to explain the current state of things without either confusing or scaring the bejeezus out of the kid. Still, he tried his best to put it all into easy-to-understand terms.

"Okay, did you see that big man in the living room, Danny?"

Danny nodded.

"Have you ever had a secret that you could only tell to your mom or dad, but you couldn't tell it to anybody else, and they couldn't tell it to anybody else?"

Again, Danny nodded.

"Well, that's what's happening to your mom and dad right now - the big man's telling them a secret that he can't tell to anybody else, and your parents can't tell it to anybody else, either," John explained to Danny quietly.

Danny tilted his head to the side. "What happens if mommy and daddy tell somebody the secret?"

About fifty million different answers popped into John's head, and all of them had to do with Judgment Day and the war against the machines. _We burn in fucking effigy, 95% of humanity gets erased from existence, we duke it out with machines for god knows how long, we live in fear every damn day..._

He wanted nothing more than to give Danny the straight-up facts about what would happen if anybody else were to find out about the terminators and the war. But, the only thing to come out of his mouth as a coherent sentence was, "Then we're in big trouble, Danny. We're in VERY big trouble."

Just then, there was a soft knock on the door, followed by a creak as it opened, and Nik and Danny's mother walked in. The wife had a stoic, emotionless expression on her face, so as not to scare Danny, but from where he stood, John could see a traumatized, terrified gleam in her eyes. _Jesus, _John's thoughts sighed. _Lady's had one helluva night. _

She made her way over to Danny, scooped him up, then sat on the edge of his bed with him in her lap.

"Mommy?" Danny said softly. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay, baby, I'm okay." His mother pressed a small kiss to his forehead, and breathed deeply.

At that, John felt a gentle tug on his arm. He turned his head slightly to look at Nik, who was nodding her head towards the hallway. "C'mon," she whispered to him.

The two stepped out into the hallway, closing the door to Danny's bedroom quietly behind them, and walked back to the living room.

"How'd it go?"

Nik gestured to the terminator, who was standing in the middle of the room, pulling a black glove onto his left hand. "See for yourself," she said with her lips pursed.

John glanced briefly at the terminator, then at Dyson, still sitting on the floor with a mixed look of fascination, disgust, and confusion on his face.

"So, now you know...about him."

Dyson swallowed, and nodded. "More than I asked for, but yes, I know about him," he panted. "God, I can't believe that my work leads to _his _creation. That's...my god, that's incredible."

Nik snorted. "Ha, you think that's incredible, wait 'til you hear about the other shit that comes from your work. You're gonna fucking LOVE that."

Sarah, who up until this point had been silently observing the scene in front of her, spoke up from the corner of the living room she was nestled in. "Better take care of that shoulder first 'fore you tell him what he oughta' know."

The terminator nodded. "She is correct. Dyson's shoulder must be treated first before we can tell him anything." He crouched down beside Dyson, and examined his shoulder. He then looked at the wife, who had re-emerged from Danny's room. "You - bring me a roll of gauze and anything to make a sling."

The wife nodded silently, and ran off to get the gauze and other materials. As for John, he stood with Nik, and watched the terminator treat Dyson's shoulder. He knew well enough that his and Nik's guardian didn't need any help patching up the injured man's shoulder; really, the most the two teens could do at the moment was to sit and wait patiently. So, that was what John and Nik did - they cleared out of the living room, headed for the dining room, took a seat, and waited.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

Eleven minutes - and three "Jesus, this hurts!" - later, Dyson's shoulder was gauzed and fixed up, and he, his wife, me, John, Sarah, and the terminator were all sitting around the dining room table, listening to the terminator fill Dyson in on what happens in the future. Truth be told, Dyson took the news pretty well; I was surprised the man wasn't twitching or shaking at how much damage he'd cause.

When the terminator wrapped up with giving him the rundown of Judgment Day and beyond, Dyson stared at the floor with a blank look on his face. "I feel like I'm gonna throw up," he said quietly.

"Yeah, welcome to our world," I muttered.

Dyson ignored my comment, and shook his head. "You're judging me on things I haven't even done yet..." He again shook his head. "How were we supposed to know?"

From the back of the room, Sarah scoffed. "Yeah, right. How were _you _supposed to know?" Her lips curled into a disgusted sneer as she glared at Dyson. "Fucking men like you built the hydrogen bomb. Men like _you _thought it up." Sarah shook her head, and hopped off the counter she'd been perching on. "You think you're so creative...you don't know what it's really like to create something, to create a life, to feel it growing inside you..."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw John sigh, exasperation written all over his face. "Mom," he groaned, not in the mood to deal with his mom's ranting and bullshit.

"All you know how to create is death, and destruction-"

"Mom!"

Sarah froze mid-sentence, and looked at her son with a question mark on her face. I looked at her, and shrugged. "You were getting a bit...off-topic," I half-frowned.

John nodded in agreement. "Yeah, look - we need to be a _little _more constructive here, okay? We still have to stop this from happening, don't we?"

"But, I thought, aren't we changing things right now? Aren't we changing the way it goes?"

"At the moment, not really. All we've done so far is talk." I absent-mindedly started drumming my fingers on the table. "We've gotta do more than talk if we really wanna make a dent in this little change-up."

"That's right. There's no way I'm gonna finish that neuroprocessor...not _now_, I mean, forget it. I'll quit Cyberdyne tomorrow."

"That's not good enough," Sarah said bluntly. I had to agree with her - simply dumping the project and leaving the company wasn't going to cut it. Dyson was gonna have to go hardcore if he wanted to keep the world from being nuked to fucking kingdom come.

"No one must follow your work," the terminator added to Sarah's statement.

"Right. Alright, then, um...we have to destroy all the stuff at the lab. The files, the disk drives, everything here - _everything_. I don't care."

I half-smiled to myself. NOW the man was talking.

Dyson inhaled sharply all of a sudden, like he'd just remembered something important. "The chip," he said as he looked at me, John, and the terminator. "Do you know about the chip?"

"What chip?"

"They keep it in the vault at Cyberdyne," he explained. "Must be from the other one like you."

The terminator's eyes flashed briefly. "The CPU from the first terminator."

"Son-of-a-BITCH, I knew it!" Sarah cursed before sliding off the table and stalking to the window behind were we were sitting.

I looked at John, my mouth twitching to one side curiously. "Long-standing theory of hers?"

John sighed. "Yep. She thought the company that owned the computer factory covered up the bullshit with the first terminator and the thing's chip." He glanced at his mom pacing in front of the window like a caged tiger, and pressed his lips together briefly. "Turns out she was right."

I pursed my lips. "Doesn't surprise me," I shrugged, observing Sarah as she ranted about "those lying motherfuckers" and a ton of other incoherent crap.

Meanwhile, Dyson tried to explain to us why his company still had the chip. "It was scary stuff, radically advanced. I mean, it was smashed; it didn't work. But, it gave us ideas, took us in new directions, I mean, things we would've NEVER..." His speech slowed as the truth hit him. The chip was what would start it all - the invention of his microprocessor, Judgment Day, the war against the machines - every single damn thing imaginable. The look on Dyson's face as he realized that he'd based his machine off of an eraser-sized chip with VERY dangerous potential was one of horror. "_All _my work was based off it."

"It must be destroyed."

I tilted my chair back, and faked shooting a basketball. "And another thing in the junkpile." I licked my lips, and stared at the ceiling in thought. "So now what?"

Sarah shot me a pointed look. "We fucking wipe away everything, Nik, _that's _what."

_Shit, she's honestly up for another round of sabotage? She's fucking lost her marbles._

"You're looking to bomb Cyberdyne, aren't you?" I sighed boredly, knowing that she was going to very _passionately _answer yes to that.

"Damn right, I am. I fucking refuse to wait around for the world to be blown up anymore. Cyberdyne is going down the fucking toilet." Sarah looked at Dyson with a steely glint in her eyes. "Can you get us in past security?"

Dyson looked a little taken aback by Sarah's question, but he nonetheless nodded. "I think so, yeah. When?"

His answer was a hard look from all of us, and the terminator rising to his feet slowly.

Dyson's face paled slightly. "_Now_?"

John and I nodded in unison. "Yes, now," we said.

"The sooner, the better," Sarah added. "Nik, John - you go with the terminator. I'm getting the station wagon and bringing it here. We'll load up weapons, and then we're outta here." To Dyson's wife she said, "Get everything in the office, throw it in a trashcan, and light it up."

"All of it?"

"_All of it._" Then, with that said, Sarah ran out of the house, and off to get the wagon.

As I watched Sarah dart out of the house, I let out a long sigh. "Bombing fucking Cyberdyne...this'll make for a great childhood memory," I muttered, my voice oozing sarcasm.

"Hey, at least you'll _have_ childhood memories after tonight." John paused, scooted over next to me, and put an arm around my shoulders. "If this goes okay, we won't have to worry about getting torched by nukes."

"You have a point there." I rested my head in the curve of his neck, and closed my eyes. "I want it to be over, John. I just want it all to fucking be over."

"Me too, Nik." He took my left hand with his free one, and squeezed it gently. "Me too."

I kept my head on John's shoulder for a few more seconds, then I pulled away, and stood up. "C'mon, we oughta wait for your mom outside."

"Good idea." John stood up, and we went out to the front to wait for Sarah, who pulled up in the station wagon about seven seconds after we walked outside.

"Perfect timing," I mumbled to myself before jogging to the back of the wagon, opening the door, and proceeding to toss out everything I could get my hands on.

Once everything we had was out of the wagon, me, John and Sarah threw it in the back of the pickup truck. Then, we rounded the others up, squeezed into the car, and headed off in the direction of Cyberdyne.

As we rode through the silence of the night and down the inky-black roads and highways, I stared out the window on my right with a blank look on my face. For better or for worse, things were going to change tonight - I just hoped to god that they were gonna change for the better.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**WOO! WE'RE GETTING CLOSER TO THE ACTION! :D ENJOY THIS ONE, AND STAY TUNED FOR CHAPTER THIRTEEN! **


	13. To Kingdom Come

**Author's Note: **Oh snap! Lucky chapter 13's here! Brace yourselves! XD

**Disclaimer: **I own…one hot-as-hell pic of Edward Furlong when he was playing John Connor. FREAKIN' LOVE HIM!

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

It was bordering on nine-thirty at night when John, Nik, the terminator, his mom and Miles Dyson finally pulled into the eerily-empty parking lot of Cyberdyne. Unlike those back in Receda, the streets in front of the big steel and glass building were practically devoid of traffic. It made everything around him silent, spooky. It filled his veins with tingling energy. _This is it, _he thought solemnly. _This is where we change the future. _

He silently slid out of the car with the terminator and his mom, went around to the back, and started pulling out black duffel bags filled either with gun ammunition or the guns themselves, breathing slowly as he did so. Nik came around to the back a few seconds later, softly humming Armagideon Time, one of her delicate hands clutching the straps of John's blue backpack tightly.

"You left this in the front," she said before tossing it to John, who easily caught it, and slipped his arms through the straps. "Figured you'd want it."

"Which I do," John grunted as he tugged at the Gatling gun with difficulty. "Hey, can you gimme a hand with this real quick?"

Nik nodded, and get on the right side of him. She then latched her hand onto the barrel of the gun, and hoisted it out of the car, the muscles in her bandaged right arm burning and shaking in discomfort. "Fuck, this thing is heavy," she ground out.

"Understatement." The two unceremoniously dumped the Gatling on a nearby patch of grass, then went back to pulling out the rest of their 'supplies.'

After tossing out a few more bags, Nik popped the question of how the plan to bomb Cyberdyne was going to work. "Assuming Dyson can get us in the lab past security, what the hell are we gonna do after that?"

"If we _do _get past security, then we just rig the place to blow, that's all."

"And if we _don't _get past security?"

John bit his lip, and exhaled. "Well, then we take care of the guards, THEN we rig the place to blow." He quickly looked over his shoulder at his backpack, then at Nik. "Here, check and see if there's a roll of duct tape in here."

"More than likely, there is," Nik mumbled. She tugged on the zipper, and quickly pulled out what John assumed was an almost-new roll of duct tape. "Yeah, you're good on tape." She then dropped the roll of tape into his hand, and zipped up his backpack. "Alright, we oughta do what they're doing" - she pointed to Sarah, Dyson and the terminator piling stuff by the entrance - "and get going. This bombing isn't gonna take care of itself."

John nodded, and started ferrying duffel bags over to the growing pile beside the door. Once everything had been stacked by the entrance, he stood behind Dyson with Nik and the others.

Briefly, Dyson looked behind him at Sarah, who nodded coolly. "Let's do this" was all she said to him. The words sent chills up and down John's spine; not only did they set in motion their plan to destroy Cyberdyne, but they also set in motion the alternative future they were creating with each passing second. They were now venturing into uncharted territory - they were now changing the future.

Dyson silently withdrew a card from his jacket pocket, and swiped it at the front doors. The machine flashed green, and clicked softly as it automatically unlocked. John exhaled in relief - _So far, so good._

The group walked into the lobby, where they were then greeted with an empty stare from the security guard sitting behind the front desk. John crossed his fingers behind his back, and prayed that he and the others would be able to get past this guy without any trouble.

With a fake smile on his face, Dyson walked up to the guard. "Hi, uh...Carl," he said as cheerfully as possible. "Friends from out of town...just thought I'd take 'em upstairs and show 'em around."

There was an uncomfortable beat of silence when Dyson stopped talking. To John, it had to be one of the most unpleasant things he had to deal with.

_C'mon, c'mon, c'mon..._

"Mr. Dyson, now you know the rules - no visitors in the lab. I need written authorization," the guard drawled monotonously.

_Shit! _

All of a sudden, John picked up the metallic _shink _of Nik's swiss army knife as she flicked the blade out, and then his mom and the terminator whipped pistols out, and trained them on the guard.

"I insist," the terminator said flatly.

The guard's hand went for the alarm button under his desk, but Sarah quickly pointed the barrel of her gun at him. "Don't even think about it." She turned to Nik. "Search him for his cuffs."

"Gladly," Nik grinned impishly. She went around to stand behind the guard, and ordered him to give her his handcuffs, the blade of her knife gently pressing against his damp skin. "Fork 'em over."

Fearing for his life, the guard fished the handcuffs out of one of his pockets, and dropped them into Nik's free hand. Almost immediately after she got them, she put one around his wrist.

She whistled to John. "Let's tape the man up, shall we?"

_Oh, hell yes._

Within minutes, the guard had duct tape covering his mouth. He was then taken into the men's bathroom, and handcuffed to a urinal. Now, there was no WAY that the plan could fail...at least, John wanted to believe that there was.

He, Nik, and the others darted back outside to grab the guns, then hauled them inside, and sent them up to the lab on the second floor. _With any luck, _John thought as he headed up to the lab with the others, _we won't even need to use the guns. _

At the moment, he could only hope.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

When the elevator jerked to a stop at the second floor, Dyson quickly poked his head out the door to check for any other guards, and nodded to everyone when it was clear. Walking out of the metal box with Sarah beside him and John, Nik and the terminator leading up the rear, Dyson quickly explained the procedure for getting the chip. "It takes two keys to open the vault, and they have to be turned simultaneously. The other one's in a locker at the security station."

"Sounds easy enough," Nik shrugged, who was currently toting a safety-locked MP5 in her arms.

"Let's hope it's easy."

Dyson swiped his card through another reader, and ushered the others into lab's security station of the lab. He pointed to what looked like a little safe in one corner of the station. "The other key's in there," he informed everyone. "Thankfully, I only have to swipe my card to access it." He stepped up to the card reader, and swiped his card. To his surprise though, it beeped and turned red. So, he tried again - the same beep and red lights.

"My card _should _access this." Dyson swiped the card a third time, and when he got the beep and red light, he resorted to tugging on the door. "Dammit!" he cursed in frustration.

Out of the corner of his eye, John noticed a computer screen with a small flashing red dot in the upper right corner. Nik must've noticed the dot too, because she asked, "What's the flashing dot supposed to mean?"

Confused, Dyson looked around the corner at another computer screen, upon where his face blanched slightly. "The silent alarm's been tripped." He looked at Sarah with a panicked look on his face. "It's neutralized ALL the codes in the building. NOTHING will open anywhere now."

As John listened to Dyson's nervous ranting, he felt a tap on his shoulder from Nik. He looked behind him, and tilted his head to the side curiously. "What's up?"

Nik's icy blue eyes traveled to his backpack. "You could hack in, couldn't you?"

For a moment, John didn't understand what Nik was talking about. Then, it occurred to him that she was talking about Old Faithful.

_Christ, why didn't I think of that before?_

He turned to Nik. "You're a genius, Paulsen," he grinned, then lightly nudged her in the shoulder. He quickly looked at Dyson and his mom. "You guys get started on the lab. Me and Nik can take care of this."

With a nod, the three adults walked off towards the lab, leaving John and Nik behind at the security station. As soon as the other three were gone, Nik undid the zipper on John's backpack, pulled out Old Faithful, and placed it into John's waiting hands.

"Now we just keep our fingers crossed and hope like hell this works," she muttered.

"This had better work, or so help me-"

"JOHN, FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

John and Nik looked towards the lab, and saw Sarah bolt and pull Dyson around a corner. When he noticed that the terminator wasn't with them, he was able to piece together what was happening. He scrambled back to the security station, dragging Nik with him and pulling her to the floor as fast as he could. "Stay low!" he hissed to Nik before covering his ears with his hands.

Two seconds later, the explosion of a thumper round as it tore the lab door to shrapnel could be heard throughout the entire second floor. The sound made John wince slightly; it was one hell of a risky move, blowing up the lab door. Somebody was bound to hear that - maybe not right now, but later, possibly. They were gonna have to be a bit more cautious if they didn't want to draw any attention to themselves.

"That terminator is fucking nuts," Nik coughed as she stood up and dusted herself off.

John nodded. "Yeah, no kidding." He scooped Old Faithful off the floor, and flipped up the computer screen. Then, grasping the wired card in his right hand, he swiped it through the reader, and pressed a couple of buttons. "Don't fail me now, baby. Don't fail me now," he prayed under his breath.

To John's relief, numbers started scrolling up the screen, gradually narrowing down until there were only four at the bottom - 7256. "Alright, 7...2...5...6."

The keypad turned green, and the door unlocked itself with a _click_. With a grin and cry of triumph, John yanked the door open, reached inside, and opened a smaller door that read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. His grin grew bigger when he saw what was inside; there, resting on a small metal hook, was the other key to the vault.

_Jackpot._

He snatched the key off its hook, and palmed it in his hands for a moment. He chuckled. "Easy money."

The words caused Nik's head to snap up. "You got it?" she asked.

John waved the key in front of her face.

She did a victory arm pump. "Now we're talking!"

He quickly stuffed the key in his pocket, tossed Old Faithful in his backpack, and took Nik's hand in his. "C'mon, lets go."

The two started running towards the lab, but suddenly halted in their tracks as blinding light flooded the room. John shielded his eyes and tried to find the source of the light, and when he did, his face went ashen. The light was coming from a helicopter outside the building, but worse yet - it was coming from a police helicopter.

"Uh-oh."

Nik's face blanched. "Shit!" she hissed as she ducked out of the light's path. John quickly followed her example, cussing under his breath. What the hell were the cops doing here? How the hell did they even _know _they were here?

"John, you might wanna see this!" Nik said nervously as she hunched over a nearby computer moniter.

Still bewildered by seeing the police heli, John went over to Nik's side, and looked at the computer screen; it showed live footage of cops - DOZENS of the damn pigs - suiting up, loading guns, and getting ready to blow his, Nik's, Sarah's, Dyson's and the terminator's head off as soon as they stepped outside.

"Shit!" he cussed. "Not good, _not good._" He gripped Nik's wrist, and practically dragged her to the lab like a stuffed toy. John hated having to handle her this way, but under the current circumstances, gentleness didn't matter. What mattered right now was getting the chip, then getting the hell outta Cyberdyne.

Momentarily abandoning Nik at the entrance to the lab, John ran over to his mom, Dyson and the terminator, who were rigging barrels of some fancy-sounding compound to blow. "We've got company," he informed them.

Nik nodded. "Yeah, and a fucking lot of it, too."

"Police?" Dyson said, to which John nodded.

Sarah inhaled sharply. "How many?"

"Uh...all of them, I think."

Sarah let out a long, steady breath, trying to keep her temper under control. "Go," she instructed everybody. "I'll finish here."

The three nodded, then started walking towards the exit. As they walked by the mutilated remains of Dyson's research, the terminator scooped up a large black duffel bag, and slung it over his shoulder. "I'll take care of the police," he said flatly.

John bit down a groan. _Oh god, not this again!_

"Hey, you swore!"

The terminator stopped walking for a brief moment, and looked at John with a devil-may-care smirk on his face.

"Trust me" was all he said to him.

Then, he walked ahead, and left John and the others behind in the lab.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

I could only gawk at the terminator like a goldfish as I watched him walk through what was left of the lab door, simultaneously unzipping the duffel bag, casting it off to one side, and revealing the gatling to everybody present.

_Holy shit, he's gonna annihilate those cops. _

All of a sudden, the urge to watch mine and John's protector kick their asses into the next century overpowered any common sense in me, and before I honestly knew what the hell I was doing, I was following the terminator into the next room to observe his destructive power.

As he walked towards the window at the other end of the room, I stopped at the entrance, pressed my back to the wall, and peeked around the corner to watch the action.

He walked up to a desk in front of the window, and effortlessly shoved it through the glass with his foot. For a second, the terminator simply looked at what was in front of him, which happened to be the same police helicopter that had spotted me and John moments ago. From what I could gather, the pilot of the heli was telling the terminator to put the gatling gun down, and put his hands on his head.

I snickered. _Not a chance, pal._

A split-second later, the terminator went ahead and opened fire on the cops. He unleashed a spray of bullets that - literally - reduced cruisers to hunks of smoking scrap metal, but at the same time, didn't leave a mark on any of the cops. It was fucking incredible - so incredible that I'm pretty certain that my lower jaw had hit the floor in awe.

_That could be me in a few years..._

It was true; in that moment, I could suddenly picture the possibility of myself doing exactly what the terminator was doing right now, and considering the role I had in the war against Skynet, the self-image made perfect sense.

All of a sudden, a pair of arms snaked around my waist, and yanked me away from the door.

"Hey!" I snapped. "What gives!"

I was promptly spun around, and I quickly found myself looking at John. He looked like he'd had the shit scared outta him.

"Jesus Christ Nik, are you trying to get yourself killed? What the hell were you doing?"

I sent John a guilty one-sided smile. "Enjoying the show," I admitted lamely. "I put you through hell there, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did." He hugged me close to him. "Do me a solid, and _don't _scare me like that again. I can't lose you now, especially when we're close to finishing this bullshit."

I gave him a muffled "Sure thing."

John let me go then, and hoisted me to my feet. "C'mon," he said as he started tugging me back to the lab, "you're coming with me to the vault."

I nodded, knowing that he wasn't gonna let me out of his sight now, and went with him to 'the vault'.

We quickly weaved through the chaos of the lab to the vault, where we found Dyson standing to the left of a huge, bank vault-like door with a second key. John immediately fished his out of his jeans pocket, went to the right of the door, and placed the key in its port.

Dyson did the same, then looked at John. "When I say, turn it to the left. One, two, three, GO."

On that, the two simultaneously turned the keys, and to our delight, the vault door opened. Dyson then yanked it open wider, and allowed me and John to go inside. He quickly followed behind us, and pressed a button on the right wall, whereupon two wall tiles unfolded to form a shelf, and revealed to us its contents - the damaged CPU from the first terminator, and what was left of its arm.

I blinked in awe. _Well, now would you look at that..._

John made his way over to the arm, which had been encased in a tall glass display case, and held his hand out. Dyson took note of this, and, sensing that John was probably gonna try to get it out, began to explain exactly _how _to do that. "Okay, now, in order to get that out, you just have to bypass-"

Like I sorta' knew he would, John ignored Dyson's list of fancy procedures, simply swiped the case off its shelf, and watched as it exploded into a million pieces of glass on the floor. He then took the case with the chip in it away from Dyson, and smashed that on the floor, too.

I looked at Dyson, and laughed at the gobsmacked expression on his face. "C'mon, you must've known he was gonna cut to that. It's a helluva lot faster than "bypassing" a bunch of shit." I stooped down beside John, and plucked the CPU out from the pile of the glass shards. I showed it to Dyson, and smirked. "See? We got what we wanted faster."

John nodded. "Damn straight we did. Here, lemme see the chip."

I wordlessly dropped it into his outstretched hand, and watched as he grabbed the arm with his other, and showed them to Dyson with a hard look on his face.

"We've got Skynet by the balls now, don't we?" he smirked as he dropped the chip into his shirt pocket and the arm into his pack. "C'mon, lets book." He stood me up, took my hand, and led me out of the vault.

"Alright, so we've got the CPU and the arm, and we've rigged the building to blow. What happens after that?"

John shrugged. "We destroy the chip and the arm," he said plainly.

I raised my eyebrows. "And how do you propose we do _that_?"

"Maybe we'll maim it with a laser cutter, or something like that." He shrugged again. "I dunno - we'll figure something out once we take care of bombing the fuck outta Cyberdyne."

"Sounds good."

We were back in the lab now, and making our way over to Sarah.

"Ready to rock?" John asked with a one-sided smile on his face.

Sarah nodded curtly. "Ready."

Just then, the terminator walked in with his thumper at the ready. "Time to go, _now._"

_Shit, this can't be good._

Without another moment's hesitation, Sarah grabbed a gas mask with an oxygen tank attached to it, and passed it to John. "Take this," she ordered him. "They'll use gas." She glanced at me. "You're gonna have to share the mask with John. I'd give you another if there were some left Nik, but it's the best I can do. Sorry."

I nodded in understanding, then started to make my way out of the lab with John and the terminator.

We didn't get that far, though; just as we were about to round a corner and leave Sarah and Dyson to finish what we'd begun, the back door of the lab crashed open, and SWAT guys poured in and opened fire. They managed to shoot Dyson several times before he dropped; they almost nailed Sarah in the head; and me - well, I got tagged below my left hip just as I cleared the line of fire.

White-hot pain ripped through my lower body, and I dropped to the floor with a howl and fifty thousand pain-induced F-bombs. It was like somebody had shanked a blazing-hot kitchen knife into my upper thigh, it hurt so bad. Jesus, compared to getting shot, that knife wound I got when we busted Sarah outta Pescadero was like a fucking love tap now.

"NIK!" John shouted in absolute terror. He wrenched himself out of the terminator's grip, and frantically dodged the SWAT team's line of sight to get to me. His eyes glistened with horror when they fell on where I'd been hit. "Oh fucking god..."

"John," I gasped, sweat pouring down my face and back and my hands covered in my blood, "it hurts...it fucking hurts..."

He immediately undid the belt around my waist, and tied it around my thigh in an attempt to stem the blood flow. Panic was written all over his face, and it looked like he was doing everything he could not to start screaming bloody fucking murder.

"Holy fucking Christ, we've gotta get the hell outta here." He looked up at the terminator for some sort of guidance. "What the fuck do we do? We need to get mom and Nik outta here before somebody actually gets killed."

The terminator nodded stoicly. "Wait here. I'll retrieve Sarah."

And he did; he actually went to the opposite wall, shoved himself through, and pulled Sarah out of the room she'd been cornered in. Then, with that said and done, he walked down the hall, aimed the thumper at the hallway entrance, and blew an opening in it. Finally, he came back, hoisted me up, and carried me out of the lab.

As the four of us ran back to the elevators, I realized that Miles wasn't with us. "Wait a sec," I panted. "What about Dyson?"

Sarah shook her head. "He's done. He stayed behind to wrap things up."

_Holy shit, he's going down with Cyberdyne. _

"Wow..." The fact that Miles Dyson was about to play the part of the captain going down with his ship made me respect him a lot more than I had a couple hours ago. Even though he didn't really have much of a choice, the man was still going through with the plan, and I had to give major props to him for that.

We rounded a corner, crammed into an elevator, and descended to the lobby. Almost four seconds later, there was a loud BOOM, and the elevator lurched and shook violently from the force of the explosion in the lab. I exhaled shakily - we did it. We destroyed Cyberdyne. We were so goddamn close to preventing the war against the machines that it all made my head spin.

We reached the ground level. The doors opened, and at first, nothing happened. Then, out of nowhere, one of those riot control gas cannisters hurtled into a wall, and suddenly the hall was chock-full of gas. Acting on motherly instinct, Sarah pressed the gas mask to John's face for a few seconds, then to mine, then to hers. I mentally swore; these cops weren't gonna let go of us easy, that was for sure.

The terminator, completely unaffected by the gas, stood up, and poked his head out into the hall. "Wait here," he commanded us. Then, I'll assume that he went off to take care of the cops.

A few minutes later, after several gunshots and cries of "IT HURTS!" from the cops, the terminator came back for us - in an armored police truck. The three of us stood up (well, at least I attempted to), made a break for the truck, and leapt in. Then, we flew outta the lobby, and hauled ass away from Cyberdyne.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

About seven or eight odd minutes later, John, Nik, Sarah and the terminator had all but abandoned Cyberdyne, and were now racing down the nearby highway like they had the devil crawling up their asses. Sarah, even though they weren't in any apparent danger, still squeezed John and Nik together in the contours of the truck, covered them with kevlar vests, and ordered them to "stay under the vests, no matter what." John didn't bother arguing with his mom; too much had happened already, and he wasn't in the mood to get smart with Sarah or anybody else. So, he nodded, and readily accepted Sarah's kiss on his forehead.

While Sarah busied herself covering windows with more of the kevlar vests, John took a look at Nik's thigh. The upper left leg of her jeans, now soaked with her blood, had been ripped to shreds where the bullet had entered. Upon further inspection, John could see that there was an entry wound almost the size of a dime in her thigh. The sight of Nik and the gunshot wound almost moved John to tears, and he struggled to bite back a sob. Nik - his best friend, the girl he loved, HIS Nik - had been shot. The sole person he couldn't imagine ever being hurt so badly had been pegged by a fucking cop. Knowing that she had been hurt that way was like the worst kind of torture to him.

He had been right next to Nik when they were leaving the lab. He could've gotten her out of the way in time for the bullet to miss hitting her leg. He could've taken that bullet for her, just so that she wouldn't be in the pain that she was in now.

But, John had done none of those things. And now, his best friend was in the worst pain imaginable.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry, Nik."

"What are you sorry for?" she asked him, puzzled by his apology. "It's not your fault that I got tagged, John."

John shook his head. "No, it is - if I'd been paying attention, then I could've gotten you outta the way of the bullet. I could've stopped that" - he pointed to the gunshot wound - "from happening."

Nik slipped her hand into John's, and squeezed it tightly. "Don't blame yourself. You had no idea that I'd get shot by a cop, John - nobody did. It's not your fault. Don't beat yourself up..." Nik suddenly trailed off, and her brow furrowed. "What the hell?"

"What's going-"

Nik shushed him for a second. "Sounds like a heli..." She craned her neck around her corner of the hiding space, and strained to see out the open back door of the truck. Almost immediately, her face paled in terror. "Sarah! We've got company!"

Grabbing a gun from the weapons rack beside her, Sarah slunk over to the door, and looked up - sure enough, there was a helicopter behind them, but it wasn't just any helicopter.

It was the police helicopter, the one that had been at Cyberdyne.

"Chopper's comin' in!" Sarah yelled to the terminator, who immediately twisted around to look out the back.

He blinked, and the next two words to come out of his mouth made John's stomach lurch violently in pure, unadulterated, paralyzing fear.

"It's him."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**HELL YEAH, MAN! WE NOW HAVE THE RETURN OF THE T-1000! Oh, what a blast writing the next couple of chapters are gonna be! Anywho, enjoy, R&R, and stay posted for chapter 14! :D**


	14. Steel and Shards

**Author's Note: **WOOHOO! WE'RE AT THE FUN PART! :D Enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **I own…a Clash t-shirt I got in Camden Town, London. COOLEST. T-SHIRT. EVER. :]

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

I almost screamed out loud the moment those two little words left the terminator's mouth.

_It's him… No… No, it can't be..._

Looking VERY cautiously at the heli out the back door, I realized that it, indeed, was _him _– the T-1000; only _he _would've made a hole in the cockpit window that was large enough for him to squeeze through, and only _he _would be piloting the stupid thing like a fucking maniac.

I looked at John with a terrified look on my face. "What do we do now?"

John blinked, the gleam in his eyes mirroring the look on my face. "We run."

At that moment then, Sarah got on her knees, hoisted up a silenced CAR-15, and proceeded to send a spray of bullets at the heli, hoping that she'd be able to tag the T-1000. I sucked in a breath of air; what she'd suddenly decided to do was undeniably stupid, but still, she was doing it - and it was for the sake of mine and her son's safety, too. It made me respect her a shit-ton more than I had one night ago, that was for certain. It made me see her stiff, cold, borderline-bipolar behavior in a different light - I now realized why she couldn't show too much affection to her son, why she couldn't show any to me -she couldn't, because if she did, then she might make a mistake that could cost her everything she and everyone else had worked so hard for. And at the moment, she couldn't afford to make that mistake.

She fired a bit longer, then crouched behind the the door that she'd fattened up with kevlar vests, and waited for a break in the T-1000's firing to retaliate. When there was, she unleashed a slew of bullets aimed directly at the hole in the cockpit window, and hoped like hell that she'd get that fucker square in the face. From where I was sitting, I could see that she did a few times; John could see, too, but only for a split-second - after that split-second, the T-1000 returned the fire, and just barely missed getting John in the face. I quickly yanked him back towards me, and he ducked behind a kevlar vest just as the firing commenced.

"JOHN!" Sarah yelled over the roar of the helicopter and the highway traffic. "STAY DOWN!"

Wisely, he stayed balled up under the vests with me, and let Sarah do what she needed to do.

For a while, Sarah and the T-1000 returned each other's fire, only stopping when we drove under a bridge, and the robot opted to go over it. Then, it was right back to shooting each other. But, at one point, Sarah got careless about how much of herself she was exposing, and she paid the price for it when she was hit directly in the thigh.

As she went down with an agonizing howl and as John tried frantically to get to her, fifty thousand things happened all at once. Everything went into slow-motion; the T-1000 throttled towards us in the heli, and, upon seeing this, the terminator slammed on the brakes as hard and as fast as he could. The heli smashed violently into the back of the truck, crumpled into a ball of scrap-metal of its own will, and dropped to the ground, where it then exploded in a ball of fire.

We began to drive away from the wreckage, but we didn't get very far - we'd only moved a few feet when one of the rear tires blew out. Immediately, the armored truck fell over with a loud groan, and suddenly, I flew out of mine and John's hiding spot, and crashed head-first into the opposite wall. Dull pain began to course through my skull, and something warm and moist slowly trickled down my forehead. Oblivious to the cries around me telling me to get out of the truck, I gingerly touched the source of the wet, and brought it to my eyes.

It was blood _- my_ blood.

Before I could figure out what I'd managed to bash my head on, somebody grasped my arm in a vice-like grip, and hoisted me up like I weighed little more than a rag doll. I didn't have to look up or ask to know it was the terminator who was escorting me out of the truck; only he would handle me in such a way as this.

"We cannot stay here, Nik," he told me in his stoic voice. "We need to move quickly."

I responded with a weak, yet passable nod before I began looking for John. "J-John... Sarah..."

"Behind us." The terminator looked behind his back at what I assumed was John and Sarah for a brief moment, then ducked through the back doors, and out onto the now-empty highway.

I mimicked the terminator's actions, making sure I didn't move too fast, for the sake of my head; I could see that John had Sarah slumped against him, and the both of them were limping towards the door. Sweat was pouring down their faces, and they were both breathing heavily in exhaustion, pain and fear.

_Look at us... We fucking look like we're on the brink of death...like soldiers fighting for a dying cause._

"Take the shotgun!" Sarah rasped at John as the two stepped out of the truck, ignoring the look she was getting from some old guy who'd stopped to help us.

He squinted a bit, leaned forward to get a better look at us. "Are you hurt?"

Both the terminator and I glared at the guy following his question. For one, half of the skin on robot's damn face was starting to peel off from all the damage that he'd taken, and for another, Sarah, John, or I had either been shot, knifed or violently handled in the past few minutes. The guy knew, and he _still_ had the balls to ask us that fucking question, when his blatantly-obvious answer was standing right in front of him.

"Are you blind?" I hissed irritably at him. "Do we fucking _not_ look like we're-"

The low hum of a diesel engine piercing the night made me grow silent all of a sudden. I froze, and strained to hear the engine; it started out as a soft grumble, but gradually grew louder and louder, until it seemed like it was only a football field's length away from where we were standing.

_What the hell..._

I slowly looked up, and all color drained from my face when I saw a thundercloud-gray eighteen-wheeler crest at the top of the hill in front of me, and then begin rapidly speeding towards us with a purpose. My heart clenched; it was the T-1000. There was no mistaking it. He had survived the helicopter crash.

And now, he was rolling fast and furious towards us in a fucking Mack truck.

"Ohhh shit... We need to get the fuck outta here _right now_."

John's head twitched up at the sound of my voice, and his eyes widened as soon as the fell on the eighteen-wheeler. "Holy _shit_" - he tightened his grip on his mom, and started hauling ass towards the old guy's pickup - "c'mon mom, c'mon. C'mon!"

"We need your truck - _now._"

_Yeah, damn straight we do. _

Not wanting to be mowed over in the next thirty seconds, both the terminator and I made like John and Sarah, and limped hurriedly over to the pickup. We then crammed in as best as we could (I ended up having to sit in John's lap), and slammed on the gas just as the eighteen-wheeler _really _got going. From the rearview mirror, I watched as the T-1000 barrelled haphazardly _through _the armored cop truck, and continued racing towards us as my stomach and the urge to scream began to rise in my throat. Too much was happening, and too much was on the line; Sarah had been tagged in the leg worse than I had, we were trying to outrun a semi truck in a shitty little pickup, and other than forwards, we had absolutely nowhere else to go to get away from the highway. Really, it was gonna take a fucking miracle for us to get out of this alive.

"I'm bleeding, _bad_," Sarah rasped beside me and John.

_And another for Sarah to get outta this without fucking bleeding to death. _

"Keep pressure on it," John instructed her as he snatched a black towel off the floor of the pickup, and twisted it up into a passable tourniquet. "Here, this'll work."

Sarah nodded, and whipped her head around to look out the back window. Her eyes bulged. "He's gaining!"

John and I simultaneously looked over our shoulders to see for ourselves; indeed, the truck was gaining on us, and it was gaining _FAST._ Us though, we were pushing sixty-five, and nothing higher.

I looked over at the speedometer, then at the terminator with a wild expression of fear on my face. "Dude!" I yelled. "Now's REALLY not the time to be going the speed limit!"

"This is the fastest we can move, Nik."

John shook his head roughly after glancing at the speedometer, which had now taken to fluctuating between sixty and sixty-five like it couldn't make up its mind about how fast we were moving. "Bullshit! C'mon man, step on it!"

"This is the vehicle's top speed."

"I could get out and run faster than this!" he shouted.

I again looked over my shoulder at the eighteen-wheeler; it was close behind us, close enough for me to clearly see the pattern of the grills now.

_No, no, no, no, no..._

"We have to get the hell outta here," I whimpered. "At this rate, we're gonna be-"

The front bumper of the eighteen-wheeler suddenly smashed into the rear of the pickup, reducing what looked like a shingled toolshed attached to the trunk to kindling and nearly sending me through the windshield. Really, the only thing that prevented me from actually going ass over tea kettle out the front window was John, who'd wrapped his arms around me as tightly as he could the second we'd been rear-ended. "SHIT!" I yelled as the force of the hit threw me roughly against John's interlocked forearms.

It didn't stop there, though; all of a sudden, the eighteen-wheeler maneuvered to the right, and sidled up dangerously beside us. When I looked out the window to my right, I could see the T-1000 staring down at me and John with a small, sadistic smirk on his face - the smirk of a murderer who'd cornered his next victims, and was now milliseconds away from killing them.

He suddenly cut the wheel hard to the left, and the truck veered sharply towards us. I felt John stiffen as the semi's shadow bathed us in darkness. "Watch it watch it wa-"

The pickup was thrown against the concrete highway divider before John could finish, and he quickly tucked me under his body as we were then sandwiched between the divider and the eighteen-wheeler. Millions of sparks flew out from between the semi and the pickup, and the terminator struggled to keep the car moving as it grated against the concrete. I clung tightly to John, and squeezed my eyes shut before tears could well up; any second now, the T-1000 was gonna make another move, and when he did, it was over - the moment he made his next move, everyone - me, John, Sarah, the terminator - was gonna die.

The T-1000 made his move then, but it wasn't the move to kill us. Before he had the chance to smash us against the divider, he was forced to pull away, and forced to go around another eighteen-wheeler that had been in his way. The pause in the relentless attacking only lasted for a few seconds, but those few seconds allowed us to speed up and get ahead of the T-1000.

We went under a bridge as the eighteen-wheeler started gaining on us again; as soon as the terminator noticed it creeping up menacingly behind us, he reached down towards the floor, and pulled up the thumper.

_Oh, no fucking WAY..._

"You're _CRAZY_!" I squawked at the terminator, knowing fully well what he was about to do. "You're fucking crazy!"

He gave me a small shrug, and opened the door. "Here," he said as he looked at John, "drive for a minute."

"Where the hell are you going!"

The terminator didn't respond, though; he'd already climbed out of the driver's seat, and left John in control of the wheel.

_Oh god... John, you'd better drive like hell, and hope to god he doesn't miss..._

A split-second later, there was an explosion that seemed to rattle damn-near anything within a one-mile radius that came from within the eighteen-wheeler. I whipped my head around to get a good look at the damage that had been done, and mentally pumped my arms when my eyes fell on the huge, gaping hole right under the semi's windshield.

_Ha, take THAT, you fucking bastard!_

The terminator briefly stooped down, and stuck his head inside the pickup. "Take the off ramp!" he yelled to John over the loudness of the highway traffic just as a fast-approaching exit ramp came in sight.

Immediately, John cut the wheel hard to the right, swerving daringly across two lanes, and throttling down the exit ramp without a second thought. Quickly, he looked over his shoulder to see if the eighteen-wheeler was still behind us. I mirrored his actions, and watched for the truck. Two seconds later, it barged through these big barrels of water, and continued speeding towards us.

John's face paled. "Shit!"

Panic started to flood my senses at the sound of John's cussing; how the fuck were we gonna get away from this thing, and where the fuck would we go? I started scanning wildly out the windshield, trying to keep myself in check and as calm as humanly possible. There _had _to be someplace, something that would buy us some time, there just had to be.

_Goddammit Paulsen, use your fucking head! THINK! LOOK AROUND! THERE'S BOUND TO BE SOMETHING!_

And there was - I'd suddenly found what could be our saving grace in the form of a steel smelter plant. A BIG steel smelter plant with its front door _wide open_. At the moment, it seemed like our only option.

"John!" I shouted. "Hang left and head for the smelter!"

His luminescent green eyes darted to the right a little, and fell on the smelter as a hopeful light danced in his eyes. He nodded, yelled "HANG ON!" and combat-turned left. He very nearly plowed into the front of a Peterbuilt semi in the process, and made the terminator miss when he tried to shoot the T-1000's rig again, but frankly, it didn't matter to us. What did matter was that we got to the smelter as fast as we could. After that, we could go from there...hopefully.

All of a sudden, the pickup jolted forward as the semi's front bumper slammed into ours. I snarled in aggravation. "Son-of-a-bitch, this fucker just won't give up, will he?"

"Yeah, no fucking kidding!" John replied as we took out a chain-link fence in front of us, and kept speeding towards the smelter. "Something's gotta give at some point though!"

Just then, the terminator stuck his hand in, and grabbed a silenced CAR-15 he'd tossed on the dashboard. He then climbed over to the eighteen wheeler, hoisted himself up to the windshield, and proceeded to pepper the T-1000 with every single bullet that had been loaded into the stupid thing.

He didn't stop there, though; when he'd used up all the ammo for the gun, he tossed it off to the side, and instead stuck his hand through the windshield, grabbed the wheel, and cut it hard to the left. The eighteen-wheeler immediately jack-knifed, tipped over with a monstrous screech, and started skidding towards the open hangar door in front of us.

Sarah looked at the fallen truck in the rearview mirror, then back at the front. "Don't stop!" she shouted as we came closer and closer to the inside of the smelter. When we did reach the inside, she then shouted at John to "Go straight!"

With a yell, John slammed on the gas, pulled me towards him, and crashed the pickup into the front of a forklift.

For a moment, everything and everyone was silent. Then, I felt John's chest rise and fall as he breathed deeply. "Nik," he said softly. "You okay?"

I nodded into his shoulder. "Peachy keen. You?"

John didn't answer; he was too busy looking out the back, towards the door. Concerned, I looked up, and behind my shoulder, upon where my eyes widened in awe.

The enormous tank that had once been attached to the back of the eighteen-wheeler had split open, and what I guessed was liquid nitrogen was now spewing forth from the jagged gash in the tanks middle. Thick clouds of steam and other whatnot hung ominously over the dead eighteen-wheeler, and for a moment, I half-expected something along the lines of zombies to emerge from the haziness.

Well, something _did _appear from within the clouds, but it sure as hell wasn't zombies - nope, it was the T-1000. I gulped, and pulled myself closer to John as the both of us watched him climb out of the truck and jump down to the ground.

He slowly started walking towards the pickup, his entire front side glittering with what looked like ice or frost. My brows furrowed; I honestly had no idea what the hell was happening to him, but from the looks of it, it was good for us, and bad for him.

He took a step, and pulled his foot off the ground forcefully. He took another step, and pulled his other foot off the ground. He took a third step - and couldn't pick his foot up. Still, he yanked as hard as he could - and his left leg snapped in two, just like that.

_What... The... Fuck..._

The T-1000 took _yet another _step, and as his other leg snapped in two, he fell to his knees. He put his right hand down to steady himself, but when he went to straighten up, his arm snapped in two. Slowly, the T-1000 brought the stump that was his arm up to face, and stared at it with what looked like horror on his face. Then, he stopped moving altogether as more ice-like crystals consumed the rest of his body.

I couldn't breathe. The T-1000, Skynet's seemingly-unbeatable terminator, had frozen solid right before my eyes.

_Oh my god..._

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the terminator stand up (with slight difficulty, I might add), and slowly withdraw a pistol from his pants. He cocked it, and aimed it at the T-1000's chest. And then, just before he pulled the trigger, he uttered four words that would remain branded in my memories for many years to come:

"Hasta la vista, _baby_."

He pulled the trigger - and the T-1000 exploded into a million shards of frozen metal.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

The world seemed to stop turning the moment the terminator fired that one bullet at the T-1000's ice-covered chest. As John, Nik and Sarah watched the once-liquid metal robot shatter into a billion glittering pieces, a sigh escaped the thirteen-year old; it was over - the fears, the running, _everything _about this whole fucking nightmare - it was all over.

With a small smile, he pulled Nik closer to him, and hugged her tightly. "It's over, Nik - he's gone."

She peered up at John, and the glint in her eyes made his breath catch in his throat for a moment. God, those eyes...those startlingly-beautiful, piercing blue eyes... John could honestly get lost in them for hours on end and never get sick of them.

She nodded. "You wanna go see?"

"Yeah, sure." John quickly scooted out and waited for Nik to slide out of the pickup. When she was out, he wrapped his left arm around her waist, she threw her right over his shoulders, and then the two limped over to the terminator, whose gaze kept shifting between the pile of frozen metal shards and a large vat of molten steel, its white-hot contents slowly oozing down the side like molasses.

_What's he doing? Why does he... _Looking down at what was once the T-1000, then over at the molten steel, John was able to piece together their correlation, and when he did, a wave of nausea washed over him.

The heat that the steel was radiating was making the shards melt, returning them to their former liquid state. Throat now dry, John realized that he had been wrong - the terrors hadn't ended at all... No, he, Nik, Sarah and the terminator were still walking the razor's edge. They were being hunted all over again.

There was a low _click _as the terminator reloaded his pistol. He again looked grimly at the steel and the melting shards. "We don't have much time," he said somberly.

For a moment, Nik looked at John with a puzzled frown on her face - well, until she looked down at the steel and shards. Then, her face contorted with horror as the realization hit her.

"He's not really dead, is he John?"

John didn't bother answering - they both already knew the answer to that.

With fear-stricken looks on their faces, Nik and John watched as the now-liquid shards began to pool together and slowly take the form of the T-1000, suddenly feeling like their feet were rooted firmly to the concrete floor.

_Oh my god... _John thought. _It's never gonna end, is it? _

He felt a tug on his left arm. He glanced up, and found himself looking into the terminator's gunmetal-tinted eyes. "Lets go," he said to both him and Nik.

He didn't need to be told twice; he tightened his grip on Nik's waist, and they limped back towards the pickup as fast as humanly possible to collect Sarah. As he wrapped his other arm around his mother's waist, John couldn't help but wonder if he and Nik were destined to be murdered at this point, if this was something that the both of them just couldn't survive. He didn't want to believe it, but at the moment, with the way things were going, it sure as hell seemed like it.

With his stomach churning and somersaulting with increasing hopelessness, John hoisted up Nik and his mother with the help of the terminator, and then they took off without sparing a second glance at the regenerated T-1000.

The nightmare had resumed.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**Holy SHAZZNAZZLE. We have a double whammie with the highway chase, and now the return of the T-1000! _DUN DUN DUNNNNNN! _Anywho, R&R, and watch out for chapter 15! :)**


	15. Hell on Earth

**Author's Note: **Holy SHATNAZZLE – we're officially on the last leg of this story, and all I have to say is… Wow. It's been _quite _the experience writing this baby, and I honestly couldn't have done it without all your feedback – seriously, without you guys and your interest in it, _Hunted_ would've NEVER been as awesome as it's turned out thus far. So, thank you ZariaReadsHard1500, YumKiwiDelicious, SasaSakuCrazy, GlowingGreenEyes, fweakin' awesome, LightsBright, and all you other people, for sticking with me and the story until the end. It really means a lot to me. :)

Now that _that's _outta the way, I will say this: THIS WON'T BE THE LAST TIME YOU SEE NIK PAULSEN. Why? Well, I've got a T3 fic in the works right now, and I'm thinkin' it won't be long until it's posted for your enjoyment. So, to all you guys who are interested – _keep your eyes peeled! _

And now, without further ado, I give you chapter 15!

**Disclaimer: **I own…a Himalayan sundress I got from one of the biggest (and awesomest) gay communities in America that is Provincetown, Massachusetts. Ah, you've gotta love P-town… :)

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

It was like the world was ending as soon as John heard the ominous echo of footsteps behind him, Nik, Sarah and the terminator. One moment, the T-1000 was as close to being dead as it could get, and then the next, he was alive and well again, and now stalking towards the four of them. To say that John was scared out of his wits would've been the fucking understatement of the century - hell, he was _terrified _at the moment.

Still, he gritted his teeth, and tried to block out the fear as he and the terminator held Nik and his mom close to their bodies, and tried to get away from the T-1000 as fast as humanly possible. However, as fast as humanly possible just wasn't fast enough; Sarah's leg was in such bad shape that it kept buckling and slowing the four of them down every few yards, and while Nik's hadn't been hurt as severely, it was still hard for her to move beyond the speed of a slow limp.

They'd cleared the wreckage of the pickup and the forklift when Sarah gasped in pain and collapsed on the ground for the third time in two minutes. John's face blanched, and he frantically hoisted her up, all the while shouting "C'mon mom, get up! Get up!"

With a yelp, Sarah forced herself to stand up, and again moved with John and the others as fast as she could.

Looking over his shoulder, John could see that the T-1000 wasn't that far behind them now. His heart pounded nervously in his chest, and sweat rolled down his temples; it would be so easy for him to run to them and just kill him and Nik right then and there, but from the looks of it, he didn't want to run - yet. No, at the moment, he seemed to be enjoying his slow, predatorial prowl towards them. He was toying with them, seeing how long they would last before he would go in for the kill. And quite frankly, it scared the _shit _outta John.

They rounded a corner, and a few more before they were stumbling towards a large pool of molten steel in front of them. As the four of them moved closer to it, John felt Nik squirm in discomfort. "Too hot," she moaned.

Sarah nodded in agreement, and she jammed her good leg's foot into the ground before the others could take another step. "No, wait! No, no - Nik's right. It's too hot."

With an inaudible groan, John pivoted the other way. "Go back, go back!"

The four backtracked, looking for another escape route. However, they hadn't even moved that far before they could see the T-1000 emerge from a cloud of steam and walk towards them.

Nik gasped shakily. "Oh fuck... Now what the hell are we gonna do?"

Unfazed by the situation, the terminator blinked. "Go," he said flatly.

John gawked at him like he'd suddenly lost his mind. Hell, he might as well have. He shook his head, and planted his feet firmly on the ground. "No! We stick together!"

"John, you and Nik have got to go, _now._"

"Like hell!" Nik snapped defiantly. "We're not gonna leave you to die-"

"Nik, you and John must go! It is for your safety!"

"No-"

"Go, NOW!"

Before he could protest again, Sarah had wrapped her arms around both John and Nik as the both of them struggled to break free of her grasp and return to the terminator. At that point, John couldn't give a shit less about his safety, and from the looks of it, neither could Nik; what mattered to the both of them was that they stayed together, like they'd all been doing for the last day or so now. Together, to the two teens, they might stand a chance against the T-1000. Separated, they were doomed to die, no doubt about it.

As he and Nik were hauled away, Nik looked behind her back, enraged and frustrated tears pooling in her eyes. "WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO PROTECTING US!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. "HUH? WHAT HAPPENED TO-"

"Shouting's pointless, Nik!" Sarah yelled back. "He's doing this for your own good! Now shut up and fucking move your ass!"

She silently complied, and continued hobbling along with Sarah and John. From where he was, John could faintly hear Nik mumbling "He's gonna die... He's gonna die, then we're gonna die... We're all gonna die..."

_Hang in there, Nik... Don't lose hope..._

All of a sudden, Sarah yanked John and Nik to the right, towards a flight of stairs. "Up the stairs," she rasped, trying to be strong, despite the pain she was in. "You and Nik first. Go!"

John nodded, and let go of Sarah before he gripped Nik's waist tightly, and slowly climbed up the steps with her. "C'mon Nik, I've got you, you can do this..."

Nik shook her head weakly. "John, I dunno how much longer I can do this..."

He pressed a chaste kiss to Nik's right temple. "Don't focus on that," he told her as they neared the top of the stairs. "C'mon, we're almost there. Just a couple more steps and we're good."

That said, the two thirteen-year olds took a breath, and made a solid effort to get to the top. Then John removed his arm from Nik's waist, and went back down to grab Sarah.

"John, grab my hand."

He silently obeyed, and helped his mom hop up the steps slowly. She cussed and winced as she forced herself up step after step, trying her damnedest not to shriek from the waves of pain shooting up her leg. "Damn steps," she ground out.

At last, they reached the top of the stairs. With a small sigh of relief, John wrapped his arms around Sarah and hoisted her up to the large platform. "C'mon mom, I've got you," he said. "C'mon, let's go." He turned to Nik, and nodded. "C'mon - grab my hand."

With a short nod, Nik hobbled over to John, and slipped her hand into his. Then, the three moved quickly to the stairwell at the other end of the platform, hoping to god that it would lead to their escape.

They'd made it down a few steps when they saw _him_ emerge from another cloud of steam. A small, murderous smile graced his face when his eyes fell on the three standing above him, and, very slowly, he began to climb up the stairs towards them.

John felt Nik's hand tremble with fear in his. "No... I don't wanna die..." she whimpered.

At first, John was really tempted to say that that wasn't gonna happen, but when he looked at where he, Nik and Sarah were, he realized that maybe it _would _happen; the platform they were now standing on had only two stairwells, and both were closely situated to each other. It wouldn't make a difference if they were to turn around right now and go to the other set of stairs. It would only take a few seconds for the T-1000 to run over to it, and to catch them as they made their way down. A lump formed in John's throat and his stomach seized with sickening horror. It was over, it was the end of the road... They had nowhere to go.

Or, so he thought.

At that moment, Sarah yanked him and Nik back up the stairs, and towards a cluster of chains hanging over a conveyer belt. Where it went, Sarah didn't know, but it went somewhere - somewhere _safe_, hopefully.

Removing her weight from her son's shoulder, Sarah reached out and grabbed the chains. "You two," she rasped, "grab the chain! Grab it!"

"Didn't need to tell me twice!" Nik commented before she and John ducked under a rope, and clung to the chain tightly. As soon as their fingers were curled around the chain, Sarah quickly lowered them to the conveyer belt, not giving a damn if she hurt herself more in the process.

The two teens let go of the chain as soon as their feet touched the conveyer belt, and kneeled behind a divider, expectantly waiting for Sarah to lower herself down to the belt. But, seconds passed, and Sarah didn't join them.

John's heartbeat quickened. _What the hell's she doing? She can't stay up there! She's gonna get killed!_

"Mom!" he yelled up to her. "C'mon mom, what are you doing?"

She didn't answer him. She only stared down at him and Nik with a sad look on her face, breathing heavily as sparse tears rolled down her face.

From behind, Nik gasped. "Sarah... She's..."

Those two words were what made John lose it then. "MOM! MOM! MOM!" he screamed at her as he tried to clamber over the dividers and back towards the chain. "MOM! C'MON! DON'T DO THIS! MOM!"

It was no use, though. The conveyer belt moved too fast for John to keep up with it, and soon it had carried him and Nik far from his mother, and the ugly fate that lay in wait for her.

Still, he continued screaming, even when they'd moved too far now for Sarah to hear. "MOM! MOM! DON'T DO THIS! DON'T DO THIS TO ME-"

"IT'S NO USE, JOHN!" Nik shouted over him as she grabbed his shoulders and shook him. "It's no use! She's not coming!"

At that point, John wasn't having any of what Nik was trying to tell him. "I don't give a damn! I'm not gonna fucking leave her to die!" He tried to climb over the dividers again, but he was held back firmly by Nik. He snarled. "Fuck Nik, lemme go!"

"I'm not letting go, John! Your mom's not coming! She dropped you down here to keep you safe-"

"I don't give a fuck if she did this to keep me safe! She's gonna fucking DIE if I don't get to her-"

"She's gonna die, then you're gonna die if you try to find her!" Nik countered, her voice now filled to the brim with frustration, rage and fear for John. "I _AM NOT _gonna fucking lose you, John! I _AM NOT _gonna let you kill yourself! There is _NO WAY_!" Then, with that said, Nik wrapped her arms around John, and hugged him as tightly as she could.

For a second, the suddenness of Nik's embrace startled John. Then, he buried his face into her shoulder, and hugged her back as tears threatened to spill down his face. All the frustration, all the fear, the anger, hatred, doubt, hopelessness, helplessness... the fear at the thought of losing his mom, the stress of the pressure to be a leader bearing down on his shoulders, the frustration of not being able to really show his best friend how much he loved her... Every single emotion that he'd bottled up in the last twenty-four hours, for fear of looking like a baby if he were to show them, now ached to be let out.

And John let them out. He squeezed his eyes shut, and screamed into Nik's shoulder as loudly and for as long as he could.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Nik's P.O.V._

As soon as I felt John scream into my shoulder, I hugged him even more tightly, and rested my chin lightly on his head, not saying or doing anything as he let out all of his pent-up frustration and anxieties. God, I felt so awful for him... Hell, I was really tempted to scream right along with him now.

I didn't bother, though. I just held John close, and let him vent for as long as he needed to... or, at least until something drastic happened.

After a minute, John stopped screaming, and pulled away from my shoulder. When I looked at his face, I could see nothing but pain written across it. My heart clenched.

_Fuckin' A, John..._

"Hey, you okay?"

He roughly swiped the back of his hand across his face. "I'm fine," he said quietly. "C'mon, we need to get the hell outta here."

"Duly noted." I stood up as best as I could, grabbed his hand, and hopped off the conveyer belt. We then proceeded to weave through a maze of metal support beams and platforms, every now and then running across a conveyer belt, until we stopped and crouched behind a small wall of pipes, figuring we'd distanced ourselves plenty from the T-1000.

As we perched behind the pipes and caught our breath, I glanced over at John, who was scanning everything in front of him for any small sign of movement, and touched his hand gently. "John... How the fuck are we gonna get outta here?"

"I'm working on that right now... Frankly, if I could get a layout of this place, then that would be fucking... fantastic..." He trailed off, and suddenly went into alert mode. "You hear that?"

"Hear what?"

John blinked, his eyes twitching back and forth in search of something.

I inhaled nervously. "Is it him?"

"No... It sounds like..."

Just then, there was a soft, barely-there echo of somebody calling for help - somebody calling for _John_, specifically. It was faint, and I really had to strain to hear, but I heard it, all right.

"John! I'm hurt!" the echo cried. "John! John! Help!"

It was Sarah.

I couldn't believe it, and from the looks of it, neither could John. Sarah was fucking alive. She'd dodged death.

John's eyes went wide as Sarah called for help a second time. "Mom's okay..." he breathed. "She's really okay..."

For some odd reason, I suddenly wasn't so sure about that. Granted, I _was _relieved that Sarah hadn't been skewered to death by the T-1000 - but still, there was this nagging feeling in my gut that said something was wrong, particularly with the way Sarah was calling for John. She sounded weak, desperate even... It sounded... well, not like Sarah.

_Then again, since when does Sarah EVER really call for help? _

Then, another thought hit me - one that scared me shitless for a split-second.

_What if that's not even Sarah calling for help? _

"John, I've got a bad feeling about this," I said uneasily, now suspicious of Sarah calling John... if that even was Sarah...

John looked confused, not really understanding why I was in guard mode. "Why? It's my mom - I'd know if it were the T-1000, Nik. _I know it's my mom_."

_DO you?_

Before I could say anything else, John grabbed my hand, and started dragging me towards the source of Sarah's voice, seemingly oblivious to the fact that we were still being chased after by Skynet's terminator.

As we drew closer and closer to the sound of Sarah's cries for help, I tried to pull away from John's grip. "John," I squeaked, "I have a REALLY, REALLY bad feeling about this!"

"Nik, trust me, please!" He gripped my arm tighter as we climbed up some steps to a platform. "I can't lose my mom now! Please, just trust me on this!"

As much as I loved John and wanted to trust his word, I couldn't. My whole body was freaking out and on high alert, and the fact that we were a few yards from Sarah didn't do much to tone my skittishness down; it was like every inch of my being was screaming at me to run, regardless of my leg. Something told me that shit was gonna hit the fan, and when it did, it was gonna hit HARD. If that was the case, then there was no way in hell that I would ignore that, not when my life was still on the line.

We finally reached the top of the platform; the second we stood on it, we saw Sarah hobble around a corner, clutching her right shoulder as blood dripped down her arm. Her face contorted with agony every time she took a step, and sweat poured down her skin in torrents. From what me and John could see, the T-1000 had just about beaten Sarah within an inch of her life.

She looked up, and when she saw John, she sighed with relief. "John," she breathed as she grabbed a large hook hanging over her for support. "Help me..."

Now something was REALLY wrong; the Sarah _I _knew wouldn't be caught dead asking for help like she was right now - not when she was so open, vulnerable, weak, and with nothing to protect her, me and John from the T-1000. Hell, the Sarah _I_ knew wouldn't even risk her son's safety for the sake of her well-being.

And that's when the truth hit me.

Sarah would NEVER call on John to help her, not when he was still in danger. If I remembered correctly, Sarah had told him that he couldn't risk himself for her, no matter what happened. John was WAY too important to put his life in danger for her.

_What if we're standing in front of the T-1000 right now? _

My eyes widened in fear. "John," I gulped. "I don't think that's your mom."

"What the hell are you talking-"

"It's not _her, _John! I'm telling you, it's not Sarah! It's a fucking trick!"

As if to prove my point, a figure stepped out from the shadow of a pipe behind _Sarah_, clutching a shotgun in a tight, vice-like grip - John's mom, the _real _Sarah. There was a look of determination on her face, and her eyes were spitting enraged flames at her imposter. Swiftly, silently, she aimed the barrel of the shotgun at the fake's spine just as John looked up at her. His eyes widened in confusion when he saw the gun.

"Mom?"

A growl escaped from Sarah's mouth as she poised her index finger lightly on the shotgun's trigger. "Get out of the way, John!" she barked. "You too, Nik - NOW!"

Immediately following the given order, John froze, not sure who to believe anymore. I panicked, and tried to move him off to the side, but he wouldn't budge. He stayed rooted to his spot, looking at both Sarahs, trying to decide which one was real and which one was fake.

He looked down at the floor then, and when he saw that the boots of the Sarah in front of us looked like they were part of the platform, his eyes widened in horror. Frantically, he yanked me to the right, and screamed at his mom to "SHOOT!"

Sarah did so with pleasure; she fired a shell at the fake, and it jolted forward. Then, like we now knew it would, the fake returned to its original T-1000 form, and stared at Sarah coldly. The look on his face seemed to enrage Sarah, and she let loose that rage by firing another shell at him, then another, and another, each time sending him back a few feet towards the edge of the platform. She'd fired six shells at the T-1000, and by the time he'd reached the very edge of the platform, which - conveniently enough - hung directly over a huge molten steel pit, he was on the verge of losing his balance and falling into the pit below.

My hands clenched into desperate fists as I watched the scene in front of me. _C'mon Sarah, one more... One more, and it's all over..._

Eyes narrowed, Sarah cocked the shotgun, aimed the barrel at the T-1000, and fired...nothing. There was only a soft _click _as Sarah pulled the trigger. For a second, none of us could believe what was happening; Sarah, in particular, was so shocked that she'd run out of ammo, that in a state of disbelief, she tried to shoot the T-1000 again. But, to her dismay, she got the same soft _click_.

_No... No, this can't be happening..._

But, it was. It suddenly felt like the end of the world as me and John watched the T-1000 regain his balance, and wag his index finger at Sarah like she was a naughty five-year old. A lump formed in my throat - we were fucked. There was no other way to put it. We were so dead now that it wasn't even funny.

Even then though, John hoisted me up, and hauled the both of us over to Sarah in a last stand of defiance. At that moment, the way I saw things, if we were gonna go down, then we'd at least go down on our feet, and not on our knees.

As John's arms circled around me and Sarah in a vain attempt at protection, I felt a surge of strength and bravery course through me, and I looked up to stare hatefully at the T-1000, my eyes burning enraged holes into his chest. _You've got us cornered, _I thought lividly, trying to project my train of thought at Skynet's terminator. _It's checkmate, you've got us. It all ends right here, right now._

"C'mon you bastard, what are you waiting for?" I growled. "Do it - kill me, kill John, kill us all. Ensure your goddamn survival - I FUCKING DARE YOU."

_Do it, do it, do it, DO IT, YOU MOTHERFUCKER! _

But, he didn't move - he only stared at something behind us with a look of - believe it or not - shock on his face.

_What the...?_

Just then, we heard a creak, followed by the _click _of a weapon being reloaded - from behind us. Sarah turned the three of us around, and what we saw practically rendered us speechless.

The terminator, _our _terminator, was latched to a gear rolling towards us, and he was clutching the thumper in his free hand. Both his good and damaged eye were focused intently on the T-1000, assessing his weak points keenly, and what was left of his face was in a relaxed, blank expression.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing - our terminator was _alive. _Barely alive, yes, but still alive.

And now, he was about to put an end to the life of the robot behind us.

Sensing this, Sarah growled at me and John to get down, wrapped her arms around us tightly, and forced us down. Just as we dropped to the floor, the terminator fired the last thumper round into the T-1000, where it hit him dead in the stomach.

The blast from the round was loud enough to make my ears ring, but at that point, I didn't care if it made me deaf or not. At that moment, what I cared more about was whether or not that round had done enough damage to permanently put the T-1000 out of business.

Grimacing slightly from the pressure on my thigh, I rolled onto my side, and looked up to see what had happened. When I did, my breath caught in my throat.

_Holy Mother..._

What had once been the pristine, perfectly-formed T-1000 had now been ripped, twisted and mangled into a grotesque work of art by the thumper round; the entire left side of his body had been blown away, and both the right side and head were drooping to the left in a deformed C-shape. His face was contorted in a horrified oh, and shrill, animal-like howls and shrieks poured forth from his mouth.

He staggered backwards then, trying desperately to regain himself as he teetered over the pool of molten steel, but to avail, though - the weight of his right side threw off his balance, and with a high-pitched cry, he fell into the pit.

As soon as the T-1000 disappeared from my line of sight, I rolled out from under Sarah, crawled over to the edge of the platform, and watched in awe at the robot thrashing wildly in the steel pit below me. It was a demented sight to behold - loud, unearthly screams rushed out of the T-1000 as he frantically tread in the molten metal, screams so unnatural that they gave me goosebumps and made my stomach churn slightly.

_Holy shit..._

In his final moments, the robot started taking on the forms of different people he'd disguised himself as - people like John's foster mom Janelle, with her frizzy ponytail and sleeveless button-down; people like one of the Pescadero security guards, a butterball with the air of a slacker; but worst of all, people like my dad, my seemingly-invincible ex-army father. The fucking monster had killed my own dad and taken on his form in his mission to hunt me and John down and kill us.

A lump formed in my throat as I watched the T-1000 disintegrate in the steel surrounding him. I breathed shallowly. "Burn in Hell, you fucking animal," I cursed the dying terminator softly.

The T-1000 then sank into the steel, and stared up at the ceiling of the smelter in horror. Then, its face dissolved, and it was gone.

Biting my lip, I closed my eyes, and exhaled shakily. It was over - the T-1000 had been destroyed, and me, John, Sarah and the terminator were still alive. It was all over, and it was over for good.

The nightmare had finally ended.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**HOLY SHIT! THEY KILLED THE T-1000 - FINALLY! You guys have NO idea how AWESOME it is knowing that this has been written. :) BUT - this isn't the end of the story! This puppy has one more chappie left before it's officially complete. So, stay tuned, and keep your eyes open for the 16th - and final - chapter! :D**


	16. I Know Now Why You Cry

**Author's Note: **Well, at long freakin' last, we're at the official last chapter of Hunted. :) Again, thank you so much for sticking with me and the story – it's been a real pleasure writing for you all. Now, without further ado, I give you chapter 16.

**Disclaimer: **I own… you all at Gears of War 2, as does my kick-ass brother. :D

**Brothers note:** I KICK ASS ON INSAAAANE MOTHER FUCKERS! :3

**Er… yeah. Anywho, enjoy, and hopefully, I'll see you all again soon! :)**

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_John's P.O.V._

The T-1000 was dead.

John honestly felt like his heart had just stopped, or like what he'd just witnessed was an illusion of some sort. There was no way that the thing that had been chasing him, Nik, and Sarah for the past two days had just... ceased to exist the way it did. A single thumper round... Christ, if he had known that that was all it would take to really destroy the liquid metal man, John might've had the terminator use one on him sooner, and spare everyone all the chaos they'd been subjected to.

_Speaking of the terminator..._

Immediately, the thought had John on his feet, and running to the terminator, who was struggling to stand up. Quickly, he wrapped an arm around his guardian's beefy waist, and attempted to hoist him up. "Get up, c'mon," he grunted, the muscles in his arm straining and aching in their attempt to pull up the terminator. No matter how he pulled and tugged though, the robot wouldn't move; he was just too heavy.

It wasn't until Nik noticed, hobbled over, and wrapped her arms around the terminator's massive chest that John was able to get him on his feet. "Thanks," he said a little breathlessly once the two managed to prop the robot up against a support beam.

"Yeah, course," Nik breathed back. "No problem."

John only nodded, then shifted his gaze to the terminator. To say that he looked a little worse for wear would've been a gross understatement; he honest-to-god looked like he'd been chewed up and spit back out by a wood chipper, he was so torn up. Hell, he was barely functioning at this point.

_Jesus H. Christ bud, you look like hell..._

He grimaced slightly at the terminator's heavily-scarred face. "Holy _shit._"

The terminator simply looked at John and the expression of shock on his face, and said "I need a vacation" as dead-seriously as possible. Neither John nor Nik laughed at the comment; they both understood that it hadn't been intended as a joke. It had been a simple statement of truth - that their guardian "needed a vacation," and a damn long one, too.

The terminator then (with much effort) proceeded to limp over to where Sarah was standing, who had taken to staring down at the steel pit with a blank look in her eyes, and stood beside her, also looking down at the pit. Nik and John soon followed, and stood on the other side of Sarah.

John remained silent for a moment as he stared down at the dark clumps of metal floating on the steel's surface like leaves floating on water. He then took a breath, and asked solemnly, "Is it dead?"

The terminator nodded once. "Terminated."

It suddenly felt like a huge weight had been lifted off John the moment that one word escaped the terminator's mouth. The T-1000 had been_ terminated - _at long last, Skynet's lean, mean, damn-near invincible killing machine had finally been defeated, reduced to liquid nothing amidst molten steel. For a moment, the only thing he could think was that it was all over, that there would be no more nightmares, no more scrapes with death, no more _fear_...

Until he remembered the arm from the first terminator stuffed in his backpack.

Wordlessly, John slipped off his backpack, and withdrew the original terminator's arm. He then turned towards the terminator, _his _terminator, and held it up for him to see. "Will this melt in there?"

The question was briefly contemplated before finally being answered. "Yes. Throw it in."

It was enough for John. For a second, he palmed the arm in his hands, face completely blank as he did. _F__unny, _he thought, _that something so harmless could have the power to wipe us out without a second thought._ He snorted as the thought rolled through his head then. _Not anymore..._

Without another moment's hesitation, he chucked it into the pit below him and the others with a sharp "Adios!" It hurtled through the heated air for all of two seconds, then fell into the steel with a red-orange spray and quick _splash_.

As soon as the arm disappeared, the terminator fixed his gaze on John. "And the chip," he added.

This time, there were no harsh words reserved for the small piece of hardware. As John pulled it out of his shirt pocket, he simply looked at it, his mind empty and his body motionless. He then unceremoniously tossed it into the pit, and watched in silence as it went up in a single flame, and fizzled away into eternal nothingness.

_Good riddance._

Sarah heaved a heavy sigh of relief. "It's over," she said in a soft, breathy voice.

If this nightmare really was over, then it most certainly didn't feel like it to John. Even now, there was a heavy sense of doubt hanging over everyone's head that was as equally thick and suffocating as the heated, steel-laced air that swirled around him and the others. It couldn't be _this _simple, there was just no way in hell; there had to be more to this than just simply melting a damaged computer chip and a robotic arm - a LOT more.

_But what is it?_

It wasn't until the word "no" escaped from the terminator that John received his answer. At first, he didn't understand what was being implied - not when Nik and Sarah stared at the terminator with looks of stunned shock on their faces, not even when the robot itself said, "There is one more chip, and it must be destroyed also," and tapped his damaged skull with his finger.

Face stoic, the terminator picked up a remote, and handed it off to Sarah. "Here. I cannot self-terminate," he told her. "You must lower me into the pit."

The moment those words were said, everything finally made sense to John. It was the terminator. _He _was the final chip, the final piece.

_No... No, this can't be right..._

All of a sudden, white noise seemed to erupt everywhere as John stared at the terminator, and his stomach gave a panicky lurch. No, he couldn't have heard what he thought he just heard. This had to be some big mistake, a clusterfuck. Maybe the terminator was delusional (if that was even possible), or part of his CPU had gotten damaged while he was fighting off the T-1000. Yeah, that _had _to be it! He couldn't actually be serious about destroying himself, could he?

Unfortunately, the look on the terminator's and Sarah's face begged to differ. Suddenly, John wanted to throw up.

_Holy shit, he's serious. _

"No... _No..._"

The terminator looked grimly at John. "I'm sorry John-"

"No! No, stay with us! It'll be okay!" Vainly, he grabbed at the terminator's jacket, fingers digging into the tattered piece of clothing. He wasn't gonna let him go anywhere - not if he - and Nik a brief moment later - could help it.

The terminator gave both John and Nik another grim-faced look. "I have to go," he said quietly.

"No! Don't do it, please don't go!"

"Please, you can't leave us!" Nik squeaked, voice trembling and eyes shiny with unshed tears. "Stay with us, please! Don't leave us!"

"I'm sorry." With a quick shimmy of his shoulders, the terminator shrugged out of John and Nik's grasp, and went to grab hold of some chains hanging over the steel pit.

Seeing as his first attempt at salvation had failed, John tried another tactic. "No, wait! Wait, you don't have to do this!"

Again, the same "I'm sorry," and again, the same "Don't do it! Don't go!"

For a moment, the terminator was speechless; he simply stared down at the pit he was about to die in. As he stared, Nik approached him, attempted to reason with him. "It can't end here," she said to him, her words heavily laced with despair. "It can't end here! You can't do this! You can't end it here!"

He only blinked. "It has to end here."

_NO!_

John couldn't take it anymore; in desperation, he threw himself at the terminator, and tried to pull him away from the edge of the pit. "I order you not to go," he snarled hoarsely. "I order you not to go! I order you not to go!"

He slowly looked up at the terminator. As he did, tears slowly began to run down his face. Why did this have to happen? The T-1000 was dead! Everyone was safe, alive! Why the fuck couldn't he see this? Why couldn't he see that they needed him?

Why couldn't he see that John loved him, that Nik loved him? To lose him now... God, the thought alone was enough to torture John. He didn't want this - he didn't want it AT ALL.

Silently, the terminator reached out, and touched the tip of his finger to a tear rolling down John's cheek. "I know now why you cry," he told him in a gentle, sad voice, "but it's something I can never do."

Through blurry eyes, John stared at his guardian. Then, he suddenly rushed at him, and, burying his face into his torso, wrapped his arms around him in a tight, desperate hug. For a moment, the terminator, slightly startled by John's actions, stood frozen on the platform. Then, he slowly pulled the shaking child close to him, and simply held him, silent as he listened to him cry.

A moment later, the terminator felt something press softly into his chest; he realized it was Nik when he glanced down, and he realized that she, too, was crying. Closing his one good eye, he pulled her close with what remained of his other arm. This was not going to be easy for them, his death.

A minute passed before he pulled away from the two teens. When he did, he turned to Sarah. Silently, she held out her hand, an offering of peace, thanks, and camaraderie. The terminator paused, then grasped her small hand with his own, and shook it. _Friends at last, _the handshake seemed to say. _Friends at last. _

He then retracted his hand, and resumed his slow walk to the edge of the platform - the slow walk to his own death. As he stepped onto the large steel hook hanging over the pit, he looked at John, Nik and Sarah, and softly bid them "Goodbye," all too aware of the tears running down the faces of the two teens, and all too aware of the somber, gloomy look on Sarah's face.

Wordlessly, she pressed a button on the remote, and began the terminator's slow descent into the steel pit.

Not once did the terminator's eyes stray from the three standing above him on the platform; and though John wanted to turn away, he kept his eyes solely on the terminator.

It felt wrong to John - so wrong. After all he'd done for him, after all he'd done for Nik, the terminator didn't deserve to die. He'd saved their lives; why couldn't they save his now?

He wanted to say something, tell his mother to stop. _Why should he die for me? Too many people have died for me!_

But the words never came. And so the descent continued.

The terminator now hung a few mere inches above the pit, so close to the steel that it looked like he was standing on it. And then, one foot submerged and flared up, then the other. Soon, he was slowly being engulfed in flames and molten steel.

The tears that had been falling down John's face now seemed to fall faster and harder, and his chest lurched up and down as he struggled to breathe. He was truly in a nightmare now; his guardian - the closest thing he had to a real father - was leaving him. He was never coming back.

As he watched the terminator sink lower into the pit, John reached out, and grabbed Nik's hand, squeezing so tightly his knuckles turned white. This was it - this was the last time he'd ever see the terminator.

In his last moment, the terminator looked up at John, and gave him a thumbs-up. Then, he sank to the bottom of the pit, and disappeared from John's sight forever.

And John, utterly grief-stricken, turned to Sarah, buried his face in her shoulder, and sobbed.

_Goodbye._

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**Okay, good news and bad news. Good news first: I just realized I actually have one more chapter left after this one for Hunted. I originally wanted to write more for this chapter and THEN be done with it, but I can't exactly do that without it becoming a huge chapter-zilla. So, the other half will be its own chapter. Woot! :) Bad news: The chapter after this one WILL be the last for this story. :( That said, I'm happy I have one more left in me for this story! :) Anywho, R&R, and stay tuned for chapter 17! :D**


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